That became readily evident when I got tagged with a “25 Things About Myself” meme and my mind went blank. 

Who was I really?  I was a guy who liked pizza and 80s music.  Other than that, I couldn’t really tell you anything.  I used to think I knew who I was, and who I was meant to be.   I was gonna be Batman. 

But then after college, life took all my hopes and dreams and tore them up into itty bitty bits, then sat on my head and projectile farted a stinky poo into my face.  And it’s all been downhill from there ever since.

Whatever aspirations I had died a very quick death, and I ended up coasting through life instead,  right into a dead end job and a series of circumstances that left me wondering if my existence weren’t really just one of nature’s colossal mistakes.

After having survived 30+ years on this planet, all I have to show for it is that I have an awesome set of disco lights to keep my bedroom/office looking like Christmas Eve every night.  But do I know who I am?  Nope.

Am I a writer?  A comedian?  A regional collections manager for a company that makes boxes?

Was I the kind of guy who could find contentment living life on the road and traveling to exotic places, or would I be happier settling down with a house and a family?

Who am I?

Tags: dreams, existence, identity, life, living, mistake
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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I’ve been pining for the girl of my dreams ever since I was a wee one and had my heart broken by an 8 year old who tore up my Valentine’s card and then kicked me in the shinny.  Since then, over the years my dream girl had always become nothing more than a part of my fantasies, a figment of the imagination, an image in my dreams, yet never someone who was truly real.

But what if… she were?

Something happened a few days ago that made me realize it was not only possible, but it was indeed a reality, a reality that God Himself was going to make happen.  It was no longer a question of whether she existed or not, but when she would finally reveal herself and change my life forever.

She IS real.  The revelation of that was finally beginning to dawn on me.

So why am I so panicked about it? 

In a way I think I’ve grown comfortable in my misery.  It was a safe place to be, absent of any responsibility or any obligation whatsoever of having to work at a real, honest-to-goodness relationship.  That she would exist meant my life as I knew it was soon going to end, and I no longer had an excuse to be a bum anymore.

It meant I had to get my act together and start training myself to be the man she needed me to be.  Strong, healthy, loyal, disciplined, loving, caring, confident… you know, all those things I’ve never been before?

Hmmmmm…

As I think about it, if she really is the girl of my dreams, someone who is gorgeous, warm-hearted, virtuous, humble, loving and gorgeous, then why should she be punished for ending up with someone like me? 

I might just decide not to change my life after all, only because I wouldn’t want her life ruined for being stuck with a mooch-ball like me.  She deserves better.  She deserves a REAL man, not some dweeb monkey who swoons to the melodic sounds of Air Supply.

Yep, I think I’m actually behaving like a real man’s man here by taking the easy way out, that way I can continue living the self destructive life I’ve been living for oh, 10 odd years now.  I’m sure she’ll find somebody else too, and I can continue to pine after her in my perfect fantasies where I have super powers and perpetually rescue her from the dark, evil forces of the Znorg Empire, and if I ever get bored of that, then I can always get lost in my collection of my favorite Nancy Drew mystery games.  You see?  It’s all win-win baby. 

… … … … … right? 

Tags: air supply, discipline, dream, dream girl, dreams, fantasies, girl, girl of my dreams, God, health, imagination, man, misery, reality, relationship, revelation, safe place, Valentine
Categories: Romance and Relationships
 
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There used to be a time in my life when Christmas actually FELT like Christmas.  I used to get into it so much that I would get out my Christmas tree and start decorating before even Halloween itself came around, much less the holiday season.

The magic in the air was just intoxicating, and I could always smell the fresh, sweet aroma of evergreen everywhere I went.  Lights would twinkle, while carolers jingled, and sometimes if we had a cooler than normal season, we’d even get snow to complete the ensemble.  And of course there was my favorite tradition of all time: the mistletoe. 

Yep, it was that time of year that made me prance me around like Pee Wee Herman in blissful joy joy happiness.

But then something happened.  Year after year we would go through the same ritual as before, but the magic was somehow gone.  I just couldn’t experience the joys of celebrating the season like I used to.  Somewhere along the line, I had grown up.

I went from the little kid who would breathlessly wait for Christmas morning to come before flying to the living room at breakneck speed to open his presents, to someone who was now spending every Christmas season, alone.

Oh, so very alone.

It didn’t seem fair that my favorite season had to be ruined each passing year just because I didn’t have anyone special in my life.  That shouldn’t have to matter, right?  But it does, somehow.  It always matters, especially around this time of year.  I always thought about what I was missing, not about what I already had, and yet no matter how hard I tried, the despair of loneliness just couldn’t be fended off, and it would drop over my spirit like a wet, smothering blanket.

Christmas was now a time that made me yearn for a life where I could share these precious moments with her, whoever she was.  I wanted to see her laugh every time a Chipmunks song came on.  I wanted to see her eyes twinkle as she hung ornaments on our tree.  I wanted to see her hold me close as we danced and kissed under the mistletoe.  These were moments I could see only in fragmented dreams, in visions that would tease me with promises of happiness and love, only to fade away to the dark realities of my failed existence.

But still I hoped.  Still I push on, ever forward, ever hoping that dreams do indeed come true, and that one day, some day, I will see the Christmas stars of a wish come true reflected in her beautiful eyes.

Some day…

Tags: alone, Christmas, christmas season, christmas tree, despair, dream, dreams, holiday season, loneliness, love, mistletoe, tradition
Categories: Romance and Relationships
 
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One of the things that really kill any incentive to pull myself together and get my life back on track is that there seems to be nothing worth fighting for.  I have no desire to fight for myself, because I’m kinda of a weenie and don’t like myself very much, so there’s no motivation there.  I can’t fight for my parents either, because they’d actually be better off if I were dead.  That way they could get my pension, my car and the rest of my possessions, which is enough to afford them a nice house somewhere without having to take out a mortgage.  Really, I’m holding them back just by being alive. 

If anything, I should be fighting for God, but I can never be convinced that He loves or cares about me, even when there are occasionally signs to the contrary.  It always seems like the people who have hurt me the most in my life end up getting ridiculously rewarded for their malice, and I’ve never understood why.  It’s like I’m a lucky charm for my worst enemies.    That’s why there are times I suspect that He cares more about my enemies than He does about me.  It’s really a battle to try to change that perception too, especially when on top of that everything else I do in life amounts to a complete failure.  Whatever I say or do has little to no impact on anything.  I can’t change lives for the better, help people get saved, or contribute anything of value to society or the church.  I am hated by all and loved by none, and it’s like I don’t even bother anymore because I know I’ll just fail as usual, so what’s the point?  (And before you start berating me for having this loser attitude, just remember it took years of perpetual failures and disappointments to develop this self-defeating mentality, so nyah.)

Then there’s the girl of my dreams factor.  One of the worst sins I could think of having committed is that I prolonged meeting her only because I’ve been such a weenie all these years.  But is she really out there at the end of the rainbow, waiting for me to get my act together and go get her?  Or am I just deluding myself into thinking she is, when the cold, hard truth of the matter is that she doesn’t exist after all, and I will live and die alone?

There were times though when I thought I had met her, and it was within those times that I found all the motivation I needed to get my life in order.  I stopped hiding in my own skin and started taking care of myself.  My clothes were new and fashionable.  My place was always clean.  I became more outgoing and personable.  My performance at work improved dramatically  I just did everything better.

And then it would all come crashing down when it became obvious that she wasn’t in fact the one, sometimes in the most cruelest way imaginable.  Afterwards it was all I could do to even get out of bed some days.  Sometimes I’d sleep for 12-15 hours straight, and even then I still couldn’t get up.  When I did get up though I had a devil may care attitude about life, purposely hurting myself and not giving a damn.  And then I would go back to sleep again for another 15 hours.

Things may calm down after a while, but I never do break out of this vicious cycle completely.  Yet… what if I could be convinced that there really was somebody out there for me after all?  Not just merely hope there was someone, but know it for a fact?  If that were the case, there’s no way I’d behave like this, because now my attitude is adversely affecting someone else’s life.  It would be wrong of me then not to pull my life together so I could be there for her.  I’d feel the same way if I had children too, because there is just no way I could excuse myself with living the way I do if it’s going to hurt my kids.  They deserve the best of me, 8 days of week, and they (as well as the girl of my dreams) would definitely be worth fighting for.

As the years go by though and I get older, these dreams and hopes begin to fade away, and with it my desire to live.

I guess I’m looking for something tangible now that will give me enough resolve to fight again, and I don’t mean mere wishy washy, hopey o’ change signs, but something truly rock solid.  If the girl of my dreams is out there, I will fight for her.  If a better future awaits me, I will fight for it.  But I have to believe it.  I have to know it to be true.

Show me the way, and I will walk in it.  Help me find what’s worth fighting for.

Tags: attitude, better future, church, depression, despair, disappointment, disappointments, dream, dreams, enemies, failure, fight, fighting, girl of my dreams, God, incentive, loser, motivation, parents, purpose
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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I only have one thing going for me right now: a steady plan to get myself completely out of debt by July 4th, 2009.  After that I’ll have a lot of wiggle room to move around and start searching for another job so I can move out of New York once and for all.

That is, if I can muster up the energy to do so, because right now it’s all I can do to even stay awake these days.  As much as I try to hope and believe a better future awaits me, I plunge so deeply in despair that I sometimes ask God to end my life.  I’m already past my prime and getting older, and with that there’s no prospect of finding a better career after having been in a dead end job for so many years.  Little to no chance of finding the girl of my dreams either, and healthwise I continue to get worse and worse.  I wonder if I don’t already have a cancer somewhere in my inwards that will soon put me out of my misery anyway.  Maybe that’s why I won’t see a doctor, so I can give it a chance to finish the job.  And of course with the coming economic holocaust and a government about to veer to the left of Stalin, it’s hard to find reasons to even stay alive anymore.

I can’t even blog because there is just nothing going on in my life right now, and the news just depresses me even more.  I guess I’m just in a really bad way right now, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get out of it.  Sigh.

Tags: career, debt, depression, despair, dream, dreams, future, God, job, life, misery
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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Ugh, I can’t sleep.

See, it used to be whenever I had trouble falling asleep I would think about how I’d meet my dream girl, exploring all the possibilities on how we’d end up together and fall in love.  Just holding on to those dreams would put my mind at enough ease that I could finally conk out and get a good night’s rest.  It was my own personal way of counting sheep, and I’d been doing it for years and years.  No matter what shape or form she took, I could always imagine her easily, beautiful and loving and caring.  My hope kept her real, helped me to believe that she was out there, and that it was only time that kept us apart, until such time finally came to an end.

But now I can’t see her anymore.

As hard as I try to imagine, my mind can’t focus enough for her to appear again, and I’m tossing and turning trying to fall asleep, wondering why it’s so hard now to even put a few thoughts together so I can dream about her for just a little while.

If there was ever a solid indication that my dream has finally died though, this would be it.  Maybe my mind is finally coming to terms with the reality that I will never, ever meet someone.  This world has become too evil, too foregone a conclusion, and I myself am just too different, too detached from humanity for it to even be possible anymore.  Maybe if I had been born 50 years ago I might have had a chance.  But not today.

My dream really is over.  I will never sleep again.

Tags: dream, dream girl, dreams, girl, girl of my dreams, love, reality, sleep, world
Categories: Romance and Relationships
 
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