Never Enough
A beautiful morning drawing by
Eating an entire box of generic shells and cheese (I added steamed broccoli and chicken for a little class) while drinking a $4 bottle of Aldi Merlot out of a whiskey tumbler is perhaps the most single father thing I’ve done since becoming a single father. It was my last available time to be able to go grocery shopping and buy Easter treats for Julien before I had him for the weekend. Desperate times…as they say.
There is so precious little time for anything now, I steal whatever moments I can here and there (including this one) and sacrifice helpful things like keeping my DBT diary and meditating, largely because I am too exhausted at the end of my outdoor manual labor job and the fact that I am now working 7 days a week whilst simultaneously raising a lovely little guy. The most difficult thing about being a parent, for me, has been struggling to understand that there is a possible future that I have to consistently plan for and anticipate it. I didn’t understand for most of my life that CPTSD affects the way my brain perceives time since it is quite often stuck in fight or flight mode which forces one to be in a constant loop of whatever danger the immediate moment could present. This was something I usually chalked up to some combination of the many concussions I’ve suffered throughout the years and a natural attraction to the idea of nihilism.
I had an enlightening discussion with my therapist about my fraught relationship with power. I got so used to not having any power or control over my life from a very young age that the idea of ever having any made me instinctively uncomfortable. It inevitably led into my relationship with violence as I eventually learned as I got older that fighting bullies provided a satisfying sense of power over injustice, at least in regards to the lives of the victims, it was seemingly always effective and the results were immediate. A common theme throughout the rest of my life seemed to be that anytime I was able to gain some sort of power in the world I was punished for it by those around me which led to a virtually endless cycle of traumas. Consider this along with my inherent vulnerability as a person being exploited and used against me and it feels like my head is never totally above water. This has all inspired some very deep thought in the wake of the current separation I find myself in, the relationship that I’m realizing was a recurrent series of minor humiliations, particularly after I was canceled and left with almost only one person to whom I could turn to for basically anything. Restructuring my life in the wake of that into something I could reshape from scratch obviously engendered a lot of bitterness, loneliness and resentment and made me increasingly susceptible to control and further humiliations. Luckily my son came along and offered me a way out of myself and so I leaned fully into shaping myself to be the best and most dedicated possible father I could to him, it involved an unbelievably difficult mountain of work that I continue to this day but I did it for him in what was unfortunately a sacrifice of some of the other valued parts of my life. I thought that I had a serious Ebay addiction for a while there, it turns out I was just very unhappy for a decent amount of time. My life is under my control now and I am trying to understand that I deserve power, respect, consideration, I even deserve praise which, even now, feels uncomfortable to say.
This has been a manic collection of just a handful of the thoughts which have been racing through my brain throughout the past week, I pray I have articulated them for you in a way that is digestible. I think about the COVID years a lot and how happy and healthy I was, I began a lot of the good work to better myself during that incredibly cathartic period. Being afforded the incredible luxury of getting paid to not work for 4 months made me the healthiest, both mentally and physically, that I had been in many many years, it was a paltry part-time library shelver’s wage but when combined with the back pay I forced my former job to pay me and the federal stimulus checks it was enough for me to not worry. I can honestly say that I do not believe I would be married, have a child, or have a decent savings account right now had COVID never happened.
Though I’m currently immersed in playoff hockey (Canadiens vs. Capitals game 2 currently, does anyone else have faith that Montreal will prevail?) and reeling in the wake of the brutally dumb and unnecessarily graphically violent new Daredevil series, I have been thinking a lot about sending manuscripts and submissions out again. Does anyone have any recommendations of publishers to send to? Magazines? Let me know in the comments or send me a DM. I’m sitting on several older manuscripts and set to work on a new one.
You entertain the mediocre need to stop it, you entertainin old friends when they toxic, what’s your life like? Bullshit and gossip
I’ll be returning to live reading on Monday May 19th at the 21c Hotel, I will share the details when I receive them in full. Reach out and say hi if you like, I’d love to hear from you. Stay well.
XO JWS
I have enjoyed your writing for a long time (I think I might've followed you on instagram can't quite remember) but it does not go unnoticed:) Also the book you sent me was excellent!