I don't expect this particular exercise - writing this entry in this journal at this time on this day - to do any good. But neither do I think it will particularly hurt. I think it will waste time, and that's something that I'm very good at, it seems.

I'm trying to make sense of nonsensical things. Why things are the way that they are. How things are, period. It's like there's a part of me that can understand and accept with cold calculated precision, and another part that can only sob. Somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, I sit with my head bowed and my shoulders slumped, and I wait.

I don't know what I wait for. Release from all this, probably. I don't know what this is, maybe it's everything.

I'm angry at myself all the time. For hanging on for too long. For not hanging on long enough. For waiting too long. For not waiting long enough. For closing my eyes to the truth and to the lies. For wondering all the time about the future and regretting all the time about the past, and not spending nearly enough time in the present.

I'll never truly know, none of us can, what would have could have might have happened, if I'd just done a better job of things. If I'd just been a better person in her eyes. I fear, though, that I'll always wonder, and that will be it for me. That will be the rest of my story; a seemingly endless series of ellipses, until it finally and abruptly ends.

Dammit...

I know that it's a cliché for some people that people never change but I think that's bullshit. I know that people can change. I'm living proof, for one thing. There are other proofs, but I don't want to get into that right now.

I've been having a lot of flashbacks lately. Just weird random thoughts and remembrances of times far in the past.

I've remembered taking my stepson to watch fireworks on the day that his sister was born. I've remembered driving through South Dakota as I moved to Seattle. I've remembered my first night of basic training. I've remembered the first time I made love to MixedSignalGirl, and I've remembered the first time I laid eyes on LaptopGirl. I've remembered taking a piss in the middle of the night in the Nevada mountains, and being awestruck by the stars.

All sorts of memories have made their way to the surface of my brain lately.

I don't know why. Not really. I have some theories, though. Maybe I'm suppressing the really important things. The current things. Or maybe I'm focusing on the past because I can no longer imagine a future.

I'm not the same person I was, not twenty years ago, and not four weeks ago. I used to be so full of hope and excitement for the future. I used to think that there was a future.

Now, not so much. Now, I just sit here, and I wait. Every now and then, I breathe. I don't know why. Something to do, I guess.

Fuck it, I'll write something. Nobody's doing any real work here today, anyway.

There's a certain appeal to it. Mainly, I suspect, because it's the easy thing to do. I mean, nothing is always easier than something, right?

Right?

So maybe I'll just do nothing, and then I'll stay like this.

I'll be that guy.

You know that guy - he tried to give himself away, and then when his offer was rejected, he didn't want himself back.

Or something like that. It's hard to write sometimes. I know what I meant, though, even if I'm only rarely able to translate thoughts and feelings into words anymore.

There, I managed to kill ten minutes out of my day by writing this crap.

And the whole process of guesstimation is fraught with guesswork.

When does a dude stop simply acting like an asshole and become an actual asshole? When does a girl with loose morals become a raging whore? When does a child go from misbehaving to being a brat?

These are the kind of questions that we all ask ourselves all the time.

And there are no easy answers.

I've advised several people, over the years when they've been angry or sad, to just hold off a little. To not do anything in the heat of the moment. To take some time to think about what's happened and to consider what they're really dealing with.

It's the person who matters. Not the actions.

And sometimes I take my own advice. And sometimes I take it far too often, and far too many times.

Until something snaps and it no longer matters what kind of person I'm dealing with. The actions become all that matters, because everything else seems like a lie.

And so, here I am. Wherever this is. Nowhere, I suspect.

In a perfect world, I don't think anyone would care about how someone used to be. It should be obvious, after all is said and done, that it's how a person actually is that's more important.

A guy could have been, for example, a real asshole in high school but be a great friend now.

And even more important than how a person is would be how a person will be.

Like, a girl could be a total slut now but eventually she could settle down and be faithful.

There are three problems with all of this.

1. It's not a perfect world.
2. We can't see into the future, so we have to make guesstimations based on present and past behavior.
3. Sometimes past and/or present behavior simply cannot be ignored. See numbers 1 and 2 above.

To summarize, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.

I get up. I go to work. I go to Rich O's. I go home. I sleep. On the weekends I might mix things up a bit. I don't work, for one thing. And maybe I'll go to stupid Bearno's and hang out with an old spark for a while. On Sundays maybe I'll meet OddlyFamiliarGirl at Jack's.

I go through the motions of life, just like everything is normal. But, what is normal? I mean, I'm a guy who dreamed for years and suddenly I found myself living a nightmare from which I refused to awaken. Who am I to even pretend to know what's normal?

I glare at my phone not out of hope but out of paralysing dread. Out of dread that it will remain silent, or out of dread that it will sound. My motivation varies with my mood.

I've not awakened from this nightmare. Things are not normal. I pretend because I don't want people to worry about me. I pretend because I don't want people to blame her for my problems. I pretend because maybe, just maybe every now and then, I'll fool myself.

It hasn't happened yet. I may be too smart to believe my own lies, but I'll keep trying. For a while, at least.

Happy birthday to my sister Dina!

I see denial and I see fear. I see timidity and I see delusion.

I see uncertainty and I see anger and I see sorrow and I see regret.

Closing my eyes, that's not an option, no matter what everyone on Earth thinks. It's already burned into my brain.

I'm really tired. Of being deemed useless and insignificant. Of being invisible. Of everything.

That first step?

It was a doozy.