I live in this building and I work in this building at a very small job that serves this broken introvert well. It is not full time and it lets me paint. For it I get a free apartment and some money and I own nothing and live a very small life. It is mostly satisfying, it mostly fits, but sometimes I get restless and wonder why I'm living a lot like a senior citizen. And maybe that's not good. For reasons I haven't got.
I went to visit my father a couple of weeks ago. He's still alive. He is alive and depressed and living a lot like I live. Remote, internally. My brother's death broke him. The next year or so he was angry at us - for good reason - why were the three losers still alive while the Shining Star was taken from him? Good question, one I agree with, one that has no answer other than that's how it went. Shining Stars die too soon, Dick Cheney lives forever.
Yes, it's random, all of it. Well, like pi. It's random, eternally, sprinkled with bouts of coincidental patterns. Like, they're only patterns by the coincidence of their random neighbors.
I asked my dad, Do you believe in god? He said he's never come up with a good answer on that one. He asked me if I believed in God. I don't. And there-in lies the rub, I realize. Because my dad's wife does believe in god, and because she believes in god she believes in purpose, hope, plan, morality, intent, reward, faith, and finally, heaven. Because I do not believe in god, I believe in none of that. My parents had sex, I showed up, end of story. It gets me nothing. For it I deserve nothing, mean nothing, matter not at all. I have no entitlement and no rights. I am here by accident and now I need to fill the space of that until I no longer am. What I do with that space is up to me as much as it is up to me to not fill that space.
What has happened as I've gotten older is seeing how people are opting to fill the space. It's with a lot of desperateness, and it is everywhere. I am so sensitive to it and the ugliness it procures I am frozen in my own life for fear of being them. If I do nothing, I wont be them.
Last year the building sold and with it the small job that has kept my existence blissfully minimal for seven years now. Meaning I still have the job, but for new people who are renovating the building and then making decisions. Meaning it is only a matter of time before I am one of those decisions.
I know this because I was told I was not a team player. I was told this because one day some douchebag told me to bend over so he could fuck me up the ass and I said no thank you, sir. By not doing this, I was deemed not a team player. As a matter of fact, I am very much a team player; I am very bad, to a fault, in not taking one up the ass by some little girl douchebag who uses the word TEAM to get what he wants, and then throws a tantrum about it, so that now I am going to be one of those decisions.
These are the things we do to fill the space. Power, importance, prestige, entitlement to feel a purpose that does not exist. And lots and lots of Instagram-et-al.
Anyhoo...my free apartment is free no longer. It is not full price, but it is not free. The building is being renovated from the top down. They are at about the half way point. This week I am moving to the bottom floor. This will buy me a couple more months while I continue to look for a second job so that I can afford to move out of here altogether. This I've been doing for many months to no avail. I think if I left this job I would better fare, but I've made the decision to keep my current job as long as I can. There are customers here I never see, and over the years they have been very good to me. I can't seem to simply quit and walk out on them while their best interests may be compromised; I need to be sure they are safely on the other side of the transition to be able to live with myself.
I live a charmed life, and I know it. It has many luxuries, none typical. Still, in my middle age, between many rocks and many hard places, what no longer exists are the illusions we wrap ourselves in to get to the next business day. The remains of the day are only realities, the sum of our choices, minus pomp and circumstance. I am looking at the sum myself in the mirror wondering what is the man I am? In the next few months I will find out, for better or worse.