No hope, but no fear, really

I have no hope in my life. Not for anything, really, not for myself, although I do have hope for my kids and their respective futures.

I really should keep it this way. Hope is a soul-killer. Hope makes you believe that everything might be all right some day. But it won’t be, not for me. Not any time soon, at least.

I’m perpetually broke (due to the cost of daycare and the fact that my gross income is too high to qualify for any social programs, but my net income after taxes and survival expenses ((e.g. rent, daycare, food, parking)) is so low that I have to get help from my mother just to keep from getting evicted from my apartment); I spend most of my waking hours alone (even when I’m at work); I can’t get out to make friends (or even go shopping); I drink too much; and by the time I’m done with my day’s work and taking care of my kids, I don’t have the energy or enthusiasm to write or record the songs that I’ve written, which is the only way that I can imagine having enough money to pay all my bills on time, pay off my student loans, and reduce my revolving credit. My idea of a vacation is not having anybody need me for eight whole hours. Nice life.

I’m a single father of three small children, and a woman would have to be crazy to want to get involved with that.

And I can’t deal with crazies.

And I’m so lonely. I didn’t realize that until this morning, when it was virtually impossible to get off the sofa (my bed).

I really don’t like my life very much. I love my children, but I don’t like my life. I often ask myself how on earth I came to live such a boring, lousy existence. Every day is the same, and no day is happy. I guess that I should talk to my doctor about using antidepressants again, but when I tried Effexor, I found that it had some unpleasant side effects. Maybe others don’t

I met a girl a couple of weeks ago, and when we spoke on the phone, I had a lot of reservations (having gotten out of a bad marriage June of last year and a really unpleasant relationship June of this year), but I enjoyed talking to her (We had three two-hour phone conversations in the space of a week), and I looked forward to our first meeting. When we met, I got excited (although I was terrified and tongue-tied). She was beautiful and stable and seemed really normal, and I could envision a friendship that could lead to more.

Since then, it seems like she hasn’t wanted to talk or get together. She says that it has nothing to do with me, that it’s just not a good time for her (which is frustrating, because she’s the one who asked a mutual friend to pass along her phone number so that she could meet me, a fellow single parent). But it’s hard for me to think that it has nothing to do with me. (Did I say something wrong? Am I really as goofy-looking as I fear? Were my anxiety and discomfort that palpable? Was I too enthusiastic when we spoke afterwards?)

I have way too much time on my hands, trapped in a moldy apartment with my kids, because I can’t afford to get a babysitter or even to do something if someone watched the kids for free. A date that seemed to go sort-of-well (from my POV) but probably went badly shouldn’t even bother me, but it does.

For three or four horrible days, I actually thought that I’d met someone who might like me and want to get to know me better (slowly, of course, as we’re both single parents and she’s back in school– when you’re dealing with six potentially broken hearts instead of two, it makes it a lot scarier to get to know someone, and you’ve got to take it slowly).

Maybe I did meet someone who might like me (or come to), and maybe I’m just over-feeling everything (over-feeling as opposed to over-thinking because this weird unpleasantness is distinctly in the realm of uncomfortable feelings, not comfortable thoughts), but since we met in person, she can’t seem to get off the phone quickly enough, and she’s already warned that she might have to break our follow-up lunch date next week.

Everybody tells me that they can’t imagine raising three children alone (5, almost-4, and 1 1/2) and that I’m doing such an amazing job, and I’ve always said that it’s not that hard because I have a good routine down. It’s not hard (except when all three scream simultaneously), but it’s really lonely, and I don’t think that that hit home until I spent an hour with somebody that I wanted to see again.

I wasn’t sad before.

When you’re used to being at zero, having that hope of a plus-one and then having that hope go away makes you feel like you’re at minus-one. I used to have love and hope and faith, but now I feel like I have none of the three, except for this gutbusting love for my kids.

It probably doesn’t help that for the past couple of days I’ve been listening to the brand-new “Songs From the Labyrinth” by Sting, a rough, haunting collection of songs by Shakespeare’s contemporary John Dowland (IMHO Sting’s best album since “Ten Summoner’s Tales”). Dowland makes Death Cab For Cutie, Mazzy Star, Trespassers William, and Nick Cave sound really cheery.

To top it all off, as I was writing this, my two older super-sensitive kids (to whom I’ve said nothing about being sad) just brought me hearts that they’d drawn for me and said, “Happy Valentine’s Day.” I’ll take four-months-early valentines from those two any day.

I just wish it didn’t make me cry.