Today I’m supposed to start working on my self assessment at work. I’ve been really screwing up for the past year so I really don’t know what to write. Maybe “with all the shit I’ve been dealing with in my life, it’s a miracle I can get out of bed in the morning. I’d have offed myself a long time ago if I’d known this was what my life was gonna be. So my self assessment is this: it’s a miracle I’m still alive and breathing. Anything else is above and beyond.”

I feel like writing about how I make a great salary but can’t afford rent or utilities because my estranged wife who told me two and a half years ago she was gay and wanted a divorce has refused to sign the papers because she’s getting a free ride from me. I’m paying for two houses, two sets of utilities, four kids, and her. I feel like writing about how I have four young kids ages 4-10 who are struggling and having behavior problems and depression issues because of their fucked up, fractured home lives. I feel like writing about how my mom is failing mentally and can’t remember to take a shower or brush her teeth or do all the things we take for granted and how my brother moved her closer to him so it wouldn’t be as big a burden on me but I’m missing her and constantly worrying about her and I don’t even have her phone number or address. I feel like writing about how my dad died four years ago but I never grieved him because my life since then has been catastrophe after catastrophe. I feel like writing about how my soul mate who I had a short fling with is with another man now and it’s killing me emotionally and intellectually along with everything else. I feel like writing about how hard it is to work when my mind is fixed on her and my heart and soul are aching and dying. I feel like writing about how I no longer have a person, a helper, someone I can turn to. I’m drowning and I have no life preserver, nothing to reach out for. No hope.

I feel like writing about how amidst all of this, I haven’t been evicted, my electricity is still on, my kids are being fed and have a roof over their heads and the structure and discipline I’m implementing are improving their behavior. I feel like writing about how rather than sitting around moping, I’m playing music at clubs and bars, I’m facilitating a bimonthly writing workshop and a poetry/spoken word open mic. I feel like writing about how I’m constantly getting out socially and meeting new people. I feel like writing about how I’m taking karate classes, working out, and running through all my pain and sorrow. I feel like writing about how I’m in the best physical shape I’ve been in my whole life. Though there are still nights I spend alone missing my kids, missing the woman I love, smoking weed and trying to watch movies to keep myself from staring into a bottle of pills.

But somehow amidst all of this, I’m alive, living life even, and trying my damned hardest to move forward somehow.

Today I’m supposed to start working on my self assessment at work. And I feel like writing all of this. But I have to stick to work stuff. Accomplishments and whatnot. And I’ve been barely holding it together, sometimes not holding it together at all. I haven’t accomplished much of anything at work. So even though I’ve done so much, and just turning on a computer and typing a sentence is a miracle for me right now, I’m afraid all I am is a blank page.

I’ve had to come to terms with a lot of hard truths lately. I’ve been fighting and not accepting. But I’m not going to be able to live my dreams.

I’m too old to from a band and have a hit song. I haven’t been able to get an agent so I won’t be able to get my fantasy series published. I’ve outgrown it and no longer believe the messages it was meant to spread like belief and hope and love. I won’t be able to write or edit that story any longer. I can barely write anything at this point.

But the biggest and hardest truth I’ve accepted is that I’m gonna be alone and I’m going to have to find some way to come to terms with that. I’ve never done well alone but I have to find a way to hang on for my kids.

I need to focus on my kids. I have to try my best to help them live the lives I wasn’t able to live. I have to motivate them and encourage them to live their dreams before it’s too late. I have to help instill them with confidence so when they meet the people they’re meant to be with, they don’t make the same mistakes I’ve made. I don’t want any of them to grow up to be like me, hopeless, angry, bitter. They’re really all I have at this point. They’re my life and I want the best for them.

I’m drowning. I have been for a long time. And things keep getting worse for me. I don’t know how I’m gonna pay my bills. I don’t know how I’m gonna get all the work stuff piling up done. I don’t how I’m going to be able to give my kids a decent childhood. I don’t know how I’m going to not go to sleep lonely every night, wishing and hoping and dreaming that somehow things will change. Somehow things will get better. But there’s no end in sight to the pain and suffering. No way out. No one to save me from this. And not even a distraction anymore.

I’ve been holding the world on my shoulders for so long. And I feel like it’s going to crush me. I’ve felt this way so many times before, maybe at least once a month for the past two and a half years. Maybe even longer. And so far somehow, some way I’ve made it through. But I’m running out of miracles. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to do this.

World, universe, God, whatever is out there, please give me one more miracle. But give me one that can sustain me. Not just get me through this one more month. I’m emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted and have been for a long time. I’m tired of working my ass off and having everything I make stolen from me by the mother of my kids who I made the mistake of trusting with my life. I’m tired of watching my kids suffer when there’s nothing I can do to help them. I’m tired of giving all of my love to a woman only to see it be given to someone else. I’m tired of watching others find happiness while I just keep sinking and drowning and dying. I’m tired of watching my dreams die one by one while I’m left with hopelessness and suffering.

Where’s my miracle? Where’s someone who can love me like I love them? Where’s my reason to go on, my purpose, my future?

I’ve been barely hanging on for my kids, barely holding it together, and often not holding it together. But that’s not enough. Where is my miracle? I don’t think I can wait any longer. I don’t think I can hang on any longer. And there’s no amount of therapy or drugs that will help cushion me from the impact that’s coming. Unless I get just one more miracle.

I feel like my world is closing in on me. I got maybe three hours of sleep last night. I somehow managed to drive my kids to school this morning and now I’m alone again. Tearing myself to pieces. Trying hard not to think about anything.

I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried everything to get money to pay my bills. My wife and I are in separate houses splitting time with my kids but since she refuses to get a job I’m paying for both houses and both sets of utilities and four kids and I just can’t afford it anymore. My credit is destroyed, partially because after my wife told me she wanted a divorce, she spent 30,000 dollars of my money on psychics. I have tons of equity in the house she’s in but she’s on the deed and won’t let me sell it. I tried every sort of loan including home equity loan and cash out refinance, but I couldn’t get them because of my credit. There’s no more money and I need to stop paying the mortgage on the house she’s in, stop utilities and move the kids in with me full time. I’ll lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity and my credit will be even more destroyed than it already is, but I really don’t have a choice. There’s no money and this is the only way I can make ends meet at this point. But I can’t watch the kids while I work and I can’t drive them to their current school because it’s too far away. So I’d have to change schools and they’d lose all their friends. My oldest son is already dealing with depression.

Also, my wife threatened to call the police and child protective services and accuse me of kidnapping if I take the kids out of there. I don’t have any more money and I can’t get any money. I can’t afford a lawyer. My life is about to fall apart.

And then last night I got a text from someone who I’m in love with but who’s with another man and my world imploded all over again because I was trying hard not to think about her as impossible as it is. My oldest son who’s 9 looked at me and said “Dad are you okay?” I really wanted to say yes and appear strong like the father who can hold it together through anything but I said no. And he hugged me. And it was beautiful and it reminded me that my kids are all I have left. I’m crying writing this right now. My kids are literally the only things keeping me alive right now.

Everyone keeps telling me that things will get better but they aren’t and soon it will be too late. My whole life I’ve believed in God. I teach Sunday school and play music in the worship team. But I’m doubting his existence. Or if he does exist, I’m not a part of his plan. I’m attrition. I‘m the sacrifice that’s made so other people can be happy. And I just suffer in agony. I’m not Jesus. I’m not Moses. I’m not Job. Hell, I’m not even Jonah. I’m not a great man. I’m weak. I curse at God and hate him right now. I’m falling apart and he’s letting it happen. And nobody can do anything to help me. And I can’t help myself. I’m just imploding. I’m staying alive because of my kids. Does that make me strong? I don’t think so. I don’t feel strong.

I feel old. I feel unwanted, discarded, unnecessary. Except for with my kids. I know they need me. So I somehow have to find a way to survive through all of this. And even be there for them. Be a parent for them. Maybe one day they’ll appreciate all the pain and suffering I’ve gone through, all the sacrifices I’ve had to make.

So let me start this off by saying I’m nuts. Okay glad I got that out of the way. I just had a gun pointed at me for the third time. The first time was a guy in an alley who tried to rob me. I told him to shoot me and put me out of my misery and he said “you crazy” and walked away. The second time I was blackout drunk and trying to get into the wrong apartment and a cop pointed a gun at me and threatened to shoot and my friend talked them down and helped me get home.

This time, I had just finished a relaxing evening at Harmony Works sound bath and acupuncture therapy. My friend and I decided to get ice cream. And when we were done, he said I should do something for myself tonight. So the weather was so nice I decided to go for a walk. I walked maybe a mile or so, and on my way back, these two knuckleheads tried to rob me with a gun.

So I’m not exaggerating when I say I’m pretty much as close to a superhero as you can get. I’m not afraid of anything, I don't feel pain, I’m insanely strong (way stronger than I look and I look pretty strong) and I know some karate. So one of them got behind me and started punching me in the back of the head but it didn’t hurt. The other guy pointed the gun, which I knocked away, then kicked the other guy with a back kick. So they started circling and the guy with the gun kept saying “give me your bread” and I said “go to the fucking grocery and buy some.” He didn’t like that. His friend said “yo give him your bread or he’s gonna shoot you. He’s gonna kill your ass.” So I said “great. Do it. Put me out of my misery.” Sort of like I did with that other guy a few decades back. But these knuckleheads didn’t run.

Some cars rode by and I tried to flag them down and shouted “hey! These guys are trying to rob me” but no one stopped of course. They said “ain’t no one trying to help you.” And I laughed and said “I don’t need help. You all are the ones who need help.”

Now at this point my glasses had gotten knocked off and I couldn’t see shit. So they started trying to jump me and their punches didn’t hurt at all. So I knocked the guy with the gun’s teeth out and he was stunned and I punched the other guy hard in the face. That’s when they ran. I yelled “your punches didn’t even hurt! You fuckers are lucky I lost my glasses or you’d both be on the ground bleeding!”

So that’s how my night went. That’s me trying to treat myself to a nice walk on a beautiful night. But it was fun actually. I’ve been waiting for someone to try to fuck with me for a while now. I took some of my angst out on those mother fuckers.

So a few nights ago I had this dream my penis fell off and I sort of positioned it in my underwear and acted like there was nothing wrong even though I had blood all over my pants. I was with several friends from my various bands when it happened (who happened to be the people I was hanging out with earlier that night in real life). So I spent the rest of the dream looking for a hospital so they could reattach my penis. For some reason it seemed like a fairly normal thing and I wasn’t too worried about it. But then I woke up and was happy I was just dreaming. Of course I did check my pants. Yup. Penis still there. Not that it’s being used for much lately, but at least the possibility is there. Maybe I’d be better off without it actually at this point. I mean I already have four kids, can’t really get laid, and when I do it tends to be short lived and turns into more of a fiasco than anything else. But that’s another story, so back to the penis falling off dream.

So as with any dream, I started thinking about possible meanings and scoured the internet. As you might expect, this is a common dream and lots of guys have posted about it and lots of dream guru types have written essays about its meaning. Let me start by saying fucked up dreams are normal for me. When I was real little I dreamed about a little girl named Mee who lived in a tree (coincidence there?) in a place called Mee land, and I would go to her whenever I had problems and she’d talk to me and help me through them. She became my first imaginary friend. But after that, fucked up dreams were the norm. Mee disappeared and was replaced with “me” jumping off hills and trying to learn to fly.

I was generally trying to fly away from evil monsters who were terrorizing the town I lived in. They were usually insects or similar like giant spiders/moths/dragonflies and stuff like that. The better I got at flying, the monsters became monsters that could fly and as I learned to fly faster they’d fly faster. I could never quite get away from them. There were giant loins attacking Columbia Mall also, and people with guns and diseases and plagues, you name it. Whatever it was, I could never get away from it, and I’d be helping whoever my crush was at the time but in every dream the damsel in distress ended up dying a gruesome death and it was just me trying to escape in the end.

I remember one dream that was particularly disturbing where there was this young girl, like 8 maybe, who only had skin on half her body. And I remember her fucked up face, half of it with bone and muscle and no eye, saying “why didn’t you save me?” I could never save the people but I could escape myself as long as I kept flying. Until I learned how to control my dreams.

I was being attacked by swarms of dragon insects so I snapped my fingers and they all became hot women who wanted to fuck me. I was in college and there was a plague killing everyone I knew. I snapped my fingers and we were all relaxing in the Bahamas. And at that point I knew I was dreaming and I woke up. So my dreams started getting more normal and mundane. Like I’d dream that I got up to go to the bathroom. And since it was so mundane I couldn’t figure out I was dreaming.

But then the teeth falling out dreams started. My teeth were falling out of my mouth and I couldn’t keep them in place. And there was always a mirror so I could watch them fall out. In one dream I was in a cave and of course there was a mirror there. And I had the “I’m in public and l don’t have my pants on” dreams. There was one dream where I didn’t have my pants on and I just stopped giving a shit. I was just like “Yeah, whatever, I don’t have pants on.” And everyone was looking at me and I just didn’t care. I just smiled and waved with my dick hanging out (it was still there in those dreams). That was probably my last not having pants dream.

And the “I’m in class but I forgot I had class and I haven’t done any work for this class all semester” dreams. Shortly after my separation I started having dreams about this girl Sheila but I’d always wake up right before we could go on our date. Then there were the dreams about the woman I’m currently in love with who’s with another man. Half the time she’d be like “why am I even in this dream? There’s no reason for me to be here.” And I’d be like “Yeah. I agree. What are you doing here?”

And now the penis dream. It was the first dream I’ve had in a long time that the girl I’m in love with wasn’t in. So according to my research, dreams where your penis falls off can have lots of meanings, but most of them mean you feel like you’re being emasculated or you’re going through a break up. Now I don’t really give a shit about my wife anymore so I doubt it’s about her. It’s probably about this last girl I was with even though we never really dated so it wasn’t really a breakup. But it’s the closest thing I’ve had to a relationship since my separation two and a half years ago. Man I really hope these missing penis dreams don’t become a thing for me.

So there you have it. All that writing about dreams to say that I had a dream that my penis fell off to commemorate the five month anniversary of the last time I got laid. Yippee! Play the noisemakers and throw the confetti. I guess it’s all about the journey though so whatever.

I visited my mom today for the first time in a long time, with the kids. My brother finally gave me her new address so I was able to visit. I used to have to take care of her, to call her to remind her of things like taking her medicine every night, but this place takes care of all that. It’s so nice to have one less thing on my plate, but I also really miss her.

It was nice to see her, but as much as I tried to pretend things were the way they were years ago, my reality follows me like the grim reaper. When I was held up at gunpoint earlier this week, I told the guy to shoot me and I really meant it. I wanted him to kill me. He had the gun pointed at my face and I smiled and I begged him to. But he was too much of a pussy. But the key takeaway is that I really don’t want to be alive.

Anger and hatred, rage and spite, are the things keeping me alive now, and a sense of obligation to my kids. My suicide counselor told me that kids with parents who commit suicide are more likely to commit suicide themselves. And I wouldn’t want me killing myself to cause one of my kids to do the same. But I don’t want to be alive. Not wanting to commit suicide and wanting to be alive are most definitely not the same thing.

I’ve given up hope that there’s anything left for me in this world. I’ve given up hope that any of my dreams are anything other than childhood hopes that have been dashed by the horrors of my adult life. I have no hope left for the future. I don’t believe in love anymore. I don’t really believe in anything. I just exist because I have kids. And even that is nearly impossible. Every day I fight battles against demons that have already defeated me.

My wife still lives in my other house and I’m forced to pay for both houses, two sets of utilities, and four kids, so I work my ass off but have no money, and then I have the four kids on weekends so I never get a break. On top of that, the one woman who I’ve had more in common with, who I fit with better than anyone I’ve ever met, who understood me better than anyone ever has, decided she’d rather be with some guy I feel like she knows isn’t right for her. So if she doesn’t want to be with me, who possibly could? My self esteem is at an all time low. I feel unwanted, discarded, and unnecessary. I’m an aging, angry and bitter middle aged separated guy with four kids. I’m not that great looking. I’m going bald, my hair is gray, my beard is white, and I wear high powered glasses because without them I can’t see shit. I don’t really know what I have going for me at this point, and to be honest, I don’t really care. I don’t want to be in love. I don’t even really want to get laid. I just want all of this pain and suffering to be over.

So I’ve decided to start a new writing project. I guess at the very least it will give me a purpose maybe. I’m hoping this one sticks because I haven’t really been able to write anything sustainable lately. There’s a fantasy series I’ve been working on for years. I finished the first book, went through rounds of editing with beta readers, sent it out to agents and was rejected time and time again. My plan was to go through another round of editing but I just don’t feel it anymore. It was a story of hope and love and I don’t believe in either of those things anymore and therefore can’t write about them. So I’m scrapping my life’s work.

It’s the day after Star Wars day and I feel like I’ve become Darth Vader. I really enjoyed beating the crap out of those two fuckers who tried to rob me. I felt like Anakin butchering the sand people. Yes, those two fuckers seemed like animals to me. Their punches didn’t even hurt but I could hear bones crack when I hit them. And I loved that sound. It felt so great to finally take out all of my anger and hatred and aggression on someone.

So back to my new writing project, if I ever get around to it. So the day after those two little shits tried to rob me, I thought about walking at night to get some barbecue. I realized I’d be walking right past the spot they tried to rob me. And my first thought was bring it on, I’ll fuck them up even worse this time. But I remembered my kids and turned and walked back home and then drove to the barbecue place. But what if I hadn’t?

I saw on Next Door that some other guy was robbed by two guys who fit the same description. In the same neighborhood. But they beat him and pistol whipped him and sent him to the hospital. They pointed their gun at him too, and they got his bike and his wallet. I felt guilty. I felt guilty for letting them run away after I beat their asses. And I taunted them as they ran. I probably pissed them off and made them want to take out their aggression on some other poor unwitting soul. A soul whose grandmother posted on Next Door about how upset she was and scared for her grandson’s life. And after I left my mom’s today, I wished I’d ran after those punks and beat them worse. I wished I’d beaten them until all the fight was gone from them permanently. Until there was no way they’d ever be able to hurt someone else. The other guy who got mugged called the cops and they didn’t do shit. I mean what could they do? Two black males dressed in all black. Could be anyone in Baltimore pretty much. But I could have chased them and beaten them worse. And I didn’t.

So what if I had gone for that walk and beaten them again, only this time chased them down and stopped them from ever robbing anyone again? And then what if I made a habit of it? What if I bought a Kevlar body suit, a mask and bulletproof glasses. Some knife blades to slide out from my wrists. What if I became a real life super hero? I can’t feel pain. I’m not afraid of anything. I’m strong as hell and I know some karate. And I’m learning more and more week in and week out. I run 4.5 miles a day and lift weights.

So here’s the idea. So I don’t have to actually become a superhero in real life, I’ll write about what would have happened if I did. I’ll start with a real life journal entry about the night I got mugged. And from there the rest of it will answer the question what if I’d done things just a little differently? And the characters will be real life characters from my life. With names changed of course. And I’ll call it The Journals of Vigilante. And I’ll publish it here on prose.

If I ever get around to it. I’ve been too depressed to do much of anything lately. But here’s to hoping.