It’s never going to be the right time.
These objections I have in discussions with my wife, these caveats and conditions, they will never go away. If one of us isn’t sick, then the other one is, or we have a bunch of unexpected expenses, or we just had a big move, or the ozone level is brutal, or someone in the extended family is having a problem, or whatever the mother monkey fuck.
All these old Phil Collins lyrics are starting to make sense to me. Say what you will, the man knows about divorce. There truly is never a time when all parties can gather unhindered by life’s myriad assaults and discuss the problem rationally. How we behave in the midst of crisis is how we behave ALL THE TIME.
I meet people who seem to have a lower crisis-to-normality ratio than I do, but those people don’t seem to want very much out of life. As Siddhartha accurately notes, it is in the striving that the suffering is born. And as I’ve noted in this space before, there is absolutely nothing I can do to change my desires, any more than I can switch sexual orientation. I am what I am.
Then again, Aimee Mann has true words on the subject of what is changeable and what is not. However, I think I am in fact losing critical pieces by shambling down a road that my frame is unfit to traverse. And hoping that the road will become smoother is merely stabbing in the dark, no more useful than reading a horoscope. If my adult life has taught me anything, it is that major upheaval must be included in the equation not as an if, but as a when.
With that in mind, are we doomed? If the present state of chaos will only give way to a new state of chaos, can we assume that how we might behave in the eye of the storm is the anomaly rather than the rule? If that is the case, then this is the shape of the future. And in its form I see only darkness and despair.
I will never forgive myself for bringing my son into this situation. Had I a modicum of true spine, I would have prevented the disaster ahead of time. But like our deluded president, I cannot unbreak the vase. I only want to keep it from getting broken further. I want my son to be happy, I want my wife to be happy, and I want myself to be happy. The unification of these goals creates a fell chord of ear-cracking dissonance that will reverberate for as long as the attempt is made, and shake the bones of any who are near it.
Perhaps it is best to let go. We are drowning, clinging to each other for life, and in the process pulling everyone under. Maybe getting it over with before my son can grasp the full ramifications will make it easier on him. Or maybe my name will pop up on a therapist’s couch in 30 years and smart for it. There is so much that I cannot know. The horror of uncertainty has bred many industries over time. I work in one of them now. It shouldn’t surprise me to fall victim myself.
Pangloss, you bastard.