Something I’ve noticed about being miserable, about living in a home where I’m not heard: I make great art. I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be miserable. I used to know when I was younger, in college. Oh how my heart would ache at breakups, oh how I would feel torn from society, so that my very being was challenged to the core. Oh how broken I would feel. And I made good, no great, passionate art. Besides the passion, what made the art strong was my sense of not caring what anyone thought of it. I so needed to express my internal state, or express anything that I would just make art without second guessing myself. I needed to make art, I needed to express, I needed passion.
I feel that now. I am so utterly devastated by the realities of my relationship with Pearl that I must express … Something. It doesn’t have to be the particular feelings I’m having about her or us, but it has to be something. It doesn’t have to relate to love or pain but it has to be something. Something that allows me to get the pain out of my head. To make it physical. Then I can hold it and look at it. I can show it to my family. We can talk about it without talking about the reality of our relationship.
The reality of our relationship is that I am currently in a state of alone-ness. It’s not a deep depressed alone-ness, but I am definitely alone. My wife has become my only friend, and that friendship is broken. All my other friends have left our city or drifted away. I really don’t have anyone to speak to about deep things, except an occasional facebook friend or old friends from years ago who are spread across the world. It would be nice to meet with someone locally and be able to speak to them eye to eye. I feel that I really need a human being to connect with.
So, in lieu of a human being I will make art. And I love that. I am motivated to make art because I need to express my internal thoughts. I can focus my emotional energies into the art making and not walk around with intense feelings bottled up inside me.
It’s fascinating what a wrecked relationship will do. I seem also to have found a new fondness for my job. I’m a teacher and it has always been something I love to do, a position in which I show natural talent, but recently I have come to appreciate the work I do in a deeper way. I was in class a couple days ago and in the midst of the tumult of all the students working, kids asking for assistance, dealing with students on their cell phones, motivating students who looked like zombies and other teacher tasks I stopped in the middle of my classroom and smiled. For a moment I listened to the hubbub of the classroom, kids helping each other, students discussing the current project, some writing, some drawing, some typing on their laptops, and it all felt so right and good. I felt so full. There I was teaching a subject which I love, a subject to which I have dedicated my life, a subject the students are excited about and enjoy, a subject which makes them happy and enriches their lives. I felt very fortunate in that moment to be in the position I’m in.
Then I come home. I love coming home because my children are brilliant, happy, creative, engaged, thoughtful, funny, excitable wise beings that fill my life with joy. But there is Pearl. I can hardly look at her anymore, and talking to her just feels empty and devoid of honesty. We talk about things that need to be talked about. What do I need from the store, when will she be back from therapy, how long will my meeting be tomorrow, etc. Only rarely do we converse about non-essential topics like politics, climate change, supernovas, or why oranges are orange. I can literally see us moving apart, unraveling the bonds we’ve developed over time, finding new outlets for our needs, the needs we used to meet for each other. It is sad, exciting, devastating, terrifying and freeing all at the same time. I wonder what the future will bring. I already think about life without her. It’s not easy. I see myself being emotionally crushed, guilty, but also free and able to move forward. The guilt is already strong in me, it’s natural, or I was raised that way or something, either way I feel guilty for thinking about life without her, for abandoning her even though I haven’t yet, for not staying with her through the thick of it, even though I am staying with her. It’s just I don’t want to. I’m tired of it.
My One True BAW 