The Loved and the Unloved

I’m rereading Houellebecq and can’t relate to it. Because I’m loved. There are the loved and the unloved. The living and the dead.

Romantic love is the source of all happiness. God won’t do it. Not to demean Him, I just mean He won’t make you happy. He’ll guide you to serve others He’ll give you purpose. Make you OK with not being happy.

But the source of happiness is romantic love.

She was mad at me, or felt weird about something- she was upset that I looked at myself too long in the gym mirror. She thinks I’m getting vain, she compares me to her ex boyfriend Kevin, whose mistakes are my fault. And it makes her think I’m in danger of getting back in the sleazy world I lived in for 30 years. She says do you understand what I’m saying and I say yes absolutely. I have no idea. I just want her to stop being mad. I have two paths. One is yes dear, the other is attack. I couldn’t be mean to her but I do think bitch what more can I do.

When we fight I have to contemplate going back to the unloved. Not because I want it but to find a way to live with it. Because if I can’t the relationship won’t hold. Anything you need that bad you lose.

I think about how to make it work. And at first it’s the living room with no couch. I’m on the cavernous echoing hardwood in a folding chair from AA playing Grand Theft Auto 6. I have to extricate myself from my job, but at the same time I need something to do. Being in the house all day will drive me insane. But I can only stand a job because the money takes care of her.

Then it’s the Philippines, a house on the beach, a family, a pet monkey. I come back and forth, I consult, I see the world’s largest bat, the world’s smallest primate. Sea turtles.

But for a while I’d be checked out of life, no more when’s the wedding, people at work know why I’m trailing off on conference calls and mailing it in. They wonder if they should do something and what, to keep me from killing myself. But I won’t. I’ll continue living. I won’t get through it, I won’t get over it. I’ve never once got over anything.

The unloved. I’ll never be a great writer, thank God. Because I didn’t grow up truly unloved like Bukowski, Houellebecq, Celine. My parents were out of their minds but they gave me unconditional love.

It’s OK to fight. You have to blow out the pipes once in a while. You can’t have forbidden thoughts you hide.

I was the unloved for a long time. I’ve only been the loved for maybe 6 years of my life. Romantic love I mean. And it was often fine to be unloved, but it was so much worse than things are now.