Life is Struggle…

Even when it doesn’t seem so from the outside

Photo by Mateusz Syta on Unsplash

I have never been the most realistic man. I get this largely from my mother who was (and is) not the most realistic, either. (Hence her sensitivity and imagination and writing.) My father, by contrast, though when he was still alive certainly a man in a lot of emotional denialism (he had hardcore selective hearing), nevertheless was a highly practical man who saw reality (cold, hard objective reality) with profound clarity. My mom did/does not. And I do not. Britney, my wife, is much more like my father. It’s probably this quintessential, foundation push-pull between she and I, the yin-and-yang, the rope-pulling, that makes us work as husband and wife.

Much of life is resolving problems, jumping over annoying hurdles, feeling “tested,” and struggling in general to survive. This might be economically, it might be physically, it might be psychologically, it might be emotionally. Or some sort of mix of all these and/or even more.

For me it’s a slight mix but mostly emotional and psychological. I am a sensitive man, this is true. (Most writers are and most alcoholics are and I’m both [also very common for writers to be alcoholics; of course I am a sober alcoholic]. Oftentimes every day feels like a struggle to me. This, despite the fact that I come from economic privilege, I don’t have to work a crappy job I hate, my wife and I own two homes and receive passive income, and I get to write and read much more often than most people.

And yet. The truth is that, for me, life has always felt, to use a term my wife cast off the other day, extra. I’ve gotten a whole lot better over time, actually. A decade ago the smallest annoyance—the most basic thing all of us have to routinely deal with in our boring everyday lives—could spin me off into an anger-victimhood spiral. Before 2010—when I was still drinking actively and alcoholically—I simply ignored most of my major problems (quite literally) and kept drinking. When I found illegal parking tickets on my windshield I laughed, tore them up and chucked them out the window. When I was summoned to court I didn’t go. When I got arrested I talked shit to the cops. When a boss insulted me I quit right then and there.

You can clearly see here my level of anger, immaturity, privilege, childishness and absurdity (let alone cluelessness and naivete.) After getting sober at the age of 27—at the time I thought I was “old” and had “seen it all”—I started, slowly, to change. This change came from quitting the bottle, but also from going regularly to AA, and working the 12 steps. (And just from getting older and starting to mature.)

Fast-forward to now and I’ll be 42 next month. (New Year’s Eve.) I have walked through a lot, as most people have by my age. Long-term romantic relationships that crumbled to dust. Heartbreak. Living in various cities; Oakland, San Francisco, Philly, Portland, New York City, etc. I worked probably dozens of different (dead-end) jobs. Caring for my father for two years until his death by cancer. Walking through the loss of cherished pets. Getting married. Traveling internationally. Trying to get my writing out to literary agents and to the world at large. Successes, failures, ups and downs, embarrassments and great moments of pride.

Through it all, slowly, I have matured and grown into manhood. For a long time I didn’t quite understand what “being a man” exactly meant. And on some level it means different things to different people. Sadly, for many in contemporary times it seems to be almost exclusively based on two main things: Money acquisition and kids. If you make a lot of money and you have kids, you’re “an adult.” Nevermind how you make that money, or how you may or may not treat your kids, or how crazy, diabolical or immature you may sound or act outside of that myopic box…the point is: If you have them, you are it.