
What Do You Want?
Is this life?
I’d say I’m in the midst of a mid-life crisis, but since my life seems to be a neverending series of crises, I’ll just say I’m sitting in a valley right now.
Is this it? I ask myself.
Or, to quote the movie, “What if this is as good as it gets?”
A boring, low-paid, low-value job. Seemingly constant frustrations. Raging OCD. Crumbling teeth. A growing awareness of the pains that precede death. The unfolding realization that I have nothing to say or add. An overarching sense of boredom stemming from mis- or lack of direction. Me, the one who always says only boring people get bored, overwhelmed with boredom.
Misty says others face the same obstacles each day. But I’m not other people. So, I’m going to bitch about it. It’s what I do.
I understand I have to reconcile myself with the place I’m in and work to get to the place I want to be (wherever that is or whatever that may be). I understand that. It doesn’t reduce the heaviness in my heart or the grayness in my head. Or, in my dealings with others and, especially, Misty, my level of asshole-ness.
Or, as she says, I’m an ungrateful asshole.
But let’s back up a couple of sentences. The core problem is that I don’t know what I want. Where do I want to be? What do I want to be? I suppose I foreclose on the thought of something else because I see no avenue out of where I am, my current rut. It isn’t as if I could quit my job (most can’t) to pursue something else, were I to come up with something else I wanted to do. I can’t, legally, take on any debt (which has its positives and its negatives) that may be necessary — this is the United States — to pursue something else. I don’t see my salary greatly increasing. San Antonio isn’t exactly bursting with jobs in the fields in which I have experience.
Don’t get me wrong: I am thankful for the things I have — a loving and caring wife; awesome, emotionally supportive pets (you know, like ESAs); a close family; a decent, low-stress, remote job.
But staring at a computer screen all day with approximately nothing intellectually stimulating to do, rarely leaving the apartment, having no nearby friends . . . boredom and sleepwalked days.
I guess I just think there must be more than this — not just for me, but for everyone. Others, undoubtedly, achieve some semblance of what they’re aiming for. Whatever it was I thought when I was younger that I’d be or do or, at least at this age, be on my way to being or doing that would make me happy didn’t happen. I didn’t do whatever it took to do or be it. Whatever it is.
So, we come back around to the not-knowing. I guess I never really knew what I wanted— just fleeting dreams. At least not enough to work for it.
Or maybe I’m spending my time and energy running from my OCD. But that’s probably just a sorry justification.
We end where we started — in a rut. This time, the rut of, “What do I want?” Because you can’t get it if you don’t know what it is.
Whine over. I’ll get over it.

