It sounded like J had an immense amount of fun. On the drive back, she got weepy and talked about how she rarely had a sense of self anymore. Getting back into music and other things was what she needed. She isn't happy with the subsuming of herself that happened with being a stay-at-home mom. She felt like she was losing more and more of her core self every year.

We re-hashed how catastrophically awful Baltimore had been, particularly since it was a new, godless hellhole of a city, with a new child that was much more intensive either of us expected, with a new job that I came to loathe with such intense and seething fury that I want to kill my old boss--with lasting and profound sincerity. J had at least found a social support network there, she conceded. Granted, I never liked fattest bitch and I despised fat/Autism Spectrum Disorder bitch. And their spawn and husbands. Christ. Fatter bitch and her family were cool.

On occasion she would ask if I was happy, or if there was other stuff I wanted to do. Of course I wasn't forthcoming. I have next to no insight into what makes me happy beyond my work. It's been that way since Daath started.

I will tell you what makes me happy:

*Doing professor shit and being in constant, unshakable control over everything I do, touch, and say--but not in a munificent way

*Going out to a goth-industrial club, drinking 3 gin and tonics in under 15 minutes, and watching dozens of strobing lights reflecting off of surfaces while the music surges through me.

*Walking in a forest.

*Playing with my son or hanging out with him unless, as it semi-frequently the case, I get really bored and am literally counting down the minutes.

*Causing people pain who deserve it.

*Watching others suffer that I think are weak.

*Reading.

*Gaming on the rare occasion I get.

So I gave it a lot of good thought. What would I do to somehow make myself happier? And I could not come up with a single thing. Sometimes I enjoy being a parent. Usually I don't. Sometimes I enjoy being a spouse. Sometimes I don't. I come home, I drink a few beers, play with my kid, try to steer him to a video so that I can actually relax, largely ignore whatever my wife is jabbering on about in her day so that she can largely ignore when I talk about my day, wait for him to go to bed, then do our separate things.

Maybe that's completely fucking awful and sad to some people. But parenting I'm finding is being there for your kid, but also biding your time. Lots of biding your time. Sure, there are other dads out there that have a raging hard-on for completely losing themselves in their children, or their spouse, and church, and whatever cocktail of godless nonsense they inhale, inject, imbibe, or apply to convince themselves of that.

I am not one of those people. I am a vain, selfish motherfucker, and I will never change that.

I concluded well into my early teenage years that I derive as much satisfaction in misery as I do in happiness. My wife could be fucking another man, my could son hate me, my job falling around my ears, and in a way it would be beautiful. Pain is edifying. Pain is real. Happiness is fleeting and usually is contingent on something that turns out to be wrong, not exist, or given into some bittersweet realization.

Daath is my home away from home in my head, where I can be as honest and vile as I want to be. Daath is my miserable happiness.

So when asked if I would change anything--no. I am happy with rarely being happy, because that makes me happy.

previous - next