Well, I can’t really answer that, but Josh will suffice. I’m a 30-something dad struggling with, well, life. Perhaps a misguided attempt to find some authenticity with my life and who I am, I decided to set this up as a platform to share in an anonymous fashion the good, the bad, and the sometimes awful moments of my life.
Names and locations of events in blog posts to come will have been altered, but all other accounts are 100% shamefully accurate. Aside from sharing with a select few individuals (one being my ridiculously overpriced therapist) many of these stories have never seen the light of day. And because of that, I decided I needed to start sharing. To open up a bit. To maybe, just maybe, start working through the pile of bullshit that surrounds my feet everyday. I’m tired. Tired of my own secrets. Tired of pretending to be someone I am not. Tired of lying to my wife. Tired of living in the depths of shame but yet repeating the same shitty behavior. Tired of life.
The easiest answer of course would be to come clean and be honest with my wife about me and what is going on in my head. But life is funny like that. I’ve learned all too often that while the truth may set YOU free, you may have selfishly burdened someone with something they didn’t deserve. That feels all to accurate with my current state of affairs with my wife. I don’t want to hurt her any more than I already have. I don’t want to upend the fabric of my children’s lives. In my own fucked-up kind of way, I’m trying to protect them from, well, me.
Am I a coward for all of this? Perhaps. Have I fantasized about scrapping it all and starting fresh? Of course. Does the nagging reality of what sort of pain that would cause in addition to financial burden keep me awake at night? All the fucking time.
I’m a mess. Not outwardly necessarily, but internally, I feel like I’m on this roller coaster ride of doom and gloom. For those around me though, I need to have my shit together. So I grind through.
This perpetual state of grinding though is wearing me down. I have self-medicated through booze, food, cigarettes, and of course, sex. While actual suicide hasn’t generally been on my radar (perhaps a deeper-level share of my adolescence later regarding that) I am doing a great job of committing spiritual suicide which causes all sorts of internal anguish.
I want to be something or someone that I am not. I want to do better, but feel trapped with who I am. I want to find joy with life and not rely on the seduction of a sex or alcohol. I want to live openly and honestly and be proud of who I am. Because I am not.
So much more to come, but thank you in advance if you’re reading this. I know there will be some strong criticism of the things that I post. And honestly, I need that. But I know that I am not alone in many of these struggles so I hope that being open and honest will help someone else that is battling through the same bullshit. At the end of the day, I just want to find peace; however or whatever that may look like.
Tangled In Life 