“so many problems he despaired of ever solving them” p.XXVII

I am, now, officially freaked out. Between yesterday and today I have accumulated enough ‘Close, But No Cigar’ kind of experience to have convinced myself that I am, like an old boyfriend once said, “a complete failure as a human being.” Intellectually I know that it isn’t true, that my problems are surmountable, that ‘this too,’ like every fuckin’ thing else, will pass. But at this particular point and in the fucked up corner I’ve backed myself in to I can’t see a way out, save to let the paint on the floor DRY first, and I used oil based enamel. It won’t be dry enough to walk on till after it’s too late. I’m depressed. I’m lonely. I actually thought about using today, which is unusual; just a fleeting thought, but enough for me to take notice and take action.

My dad asked me to come to my nephew’s christening yesterday so I got up in the morning and rented a car and drove 350 miles to be there. Since it was being held way out in the country at my sister-in-law’s mother’s home my dad said he’d meet me at a particular corner at a particular time and I could follow him the rest of the way. On the way there I stopped one time to pee and buy a coke, otherwise I drove. And drove. And drove. I arrived at the designated intersection 2 minutes late. No one was there. I waited 3 or 4 minutes and no one came. Already starting to feel like I had completely failed, I backtracked about 5 miles, thinking that perhaps they said the corner where one turns to get on to the particular road where I thought I was supposed to meet them. I found no one. I drove back to the original corner. No one. At this point I am sure I have the directions completely wrong. That I’ve driven 4 ½ hours for nothing. I begin listening to the voice in my head that tells me the same thing Charlie told me in 1992 - “You are a complete failure as a human being.” I am a complete failure as a human being.

I was in the right place at the right time (plus 2 minutes); an extraordinary feat considering the distance traveled and the fact that it was way out in the country in a place I have never been and didn’t have a map to. But still I felt like a failure. And it kept me from asking my dad for some modest financial help that I absolutely need for the short period this this whole warrant thing is cleared up and I am brave enough to get a real job again. I’m not good enough to deserve help. I’m “a complete failure as a human being.”

As a consequence of not asking for that help, my phone is now shut off. I’m “a complete failure as a human being.”

I just went to a meeting where I didn’t share about what’s really going on with me because I can’t say what’s really going on. They have to have already realized that I am “a complete failure as a human being.”

I wouldn’t have said anything at all but someone I like happened, that God, to actually look at me, and loves me enough to do what I can’t do for myself and ask me what’s going on. She had a good suggestion. I believe now there is a path to solving my immediate financial crisis. My friend Joe K., the “God in your gut” Joe, overheard and asked me to join him for lunch, which was a nice break from being inside my head for the last 24 hours.

My problems still seem overwhelming. They still, even now that I’m sober, seem to pile up at an astonishing rate. Kind of like when you spend years drinking beer in a station wagon and throw the empties in the back. Eventually, when you slam on the breaks, you get showered with beer cans. My head is still telling me I am “a total failure as a human being.” And it hurts. My life is complicated and uncomfortable, entirely because I made it that way. But that doesn’t mean I’m “a total failure as a human being.”

I think it means simply that I AM a human being.