it is midnight.

i am an awful father.  my daughter, on her first trip alone (with aunt and uncle) to las vegas, was hysterical off the plane, crying how much she missed us.  i at first tried to be consoling, but as that didn't work (and as she kept saying she couldn't hear me), i started to scold her.  now, i realize what a bad idea it was.  my wife has already talked to her, and given her a more reasoned, compassionate response.  but i am left wondering and worrying.  and thinking: what's wrong with me!?

what if it is the last time i talk to her?

***

frankly, there is something very wrong with me.

i woke up, and my first thought (or one of the first) was that of quantum leap, and how great it would be to be the guy from quantum leap, always redeeming lives... but then, what a sucky thing it was to have a memory, and to always know that your storyline, where you SHOULD be, is where you aren't...  i suppose that is the tension inherent in the story.  you cannot, for the life of you, get rid of that nagging doubt that you aren't doing what you are supposed to.

i then had the thought of a man trapped by a sinister creator.  like, he is in a dark room, and he is missing one of his organs- or better yet, a key piece of his brain, the piece that allows him to be fully thinking or fully human...  he walks and talks like a real person, but when he digs himself out, and tries to operate normally, there is a defect in him that is only apparent to others, but not to himself.  maybe he farts frequently but silently, so that others get paralyzed by his noxious odor, but he himself cannot detect it...  maybe he has some sort of tic, or his eyes do a strange dance without his knowing...  anyway, he is basically the punchline of some cosmic joke.

because that is what i often feel like.  the butt of a joke.

and the very thing that makes the joke perfect is someone who is so earnest, and so well-intentioned, being the punchline.  what better sap?  after all, someone who would wail would just be pathetic; someone who would rail against circumstances would just deliver more punitive measures...  but this guy?  he just pretends nothing is wrong, and tries to go about his business!

... i often feel like this.  i mean, they tell you to pray to god, etc. etc. etc., and in my moments of solitude, i ask him questions, i tell him concerns... i even tell him all the good and wonderful things, what i am grateful for, etc. but it never erases this nagging feeling that keeps me up at night, that there is something fundamentally wrong.  it is a worry.  a doubt...  something that is detectable by all but the person involved.  some brutally funny cosmic joke.

***

i hate judgment, although i probably commit it unawares.  i want to be the one who is patient, who cares... but the world seems to have put me in roles where i cannot necessarily be that...

***

well, to all those i offend, i apologize.  i am working on it.  and i am working on my daily quantum leap, to try to figure out what the fuck i'm supposed to do to emerge from this daily trap feeling an inch closer to the feeling of smug self-satisfaction that i believe is my god-given right, the feeling that allows me to sleep through the night, the sleep of the just... instead of always waking up at this time with wasted, vaporous dreams that recycle the endless, purposeless machinations of a mind that is broken?  where are the dreams of possibilities?  of vistas?
***
to my daughter, until i speak to you again, i am so sorry.  i was trying to be expedient, and to help those watching you, by pacifying you in the means that i thought would work.  but i miss you, terribly if i must admit it...  i love you, and i hope you are alright, and happy.  that is what i would wish.  always.  what i would wish for all people, in my world, if it weren't for me getting in the way...