It’s Tuesday morning, and I’m writing this blog post on my laptop computer because I wanted to write in a way that felt more natural (to me) than does poking away at the stupid smartphone (oxymoron?) with my sore thumbs.

I’m still on the recovery arc of my respiratory infection; I’m coughing somewhat less, and I’m not really bringing much phlegm up anymore, but the cough is still there and is more than slightly annoying.

I sometimes wonder if I could have some fungal infestation in my lungs that won’t go away on its own*, or even if I could be developing lung cancer or laryngeal cancer.  To be honest, that latter two possibilities aren’t entirely negative.  They feel more wholesome than a fungus, since I really dislike even the smell of mushrooms or mildew, and cancer would be a good, relatively slow death sentence, since I have neither the health insurance nor the inclination to seek any treatment if I were to develop cancer.

This is on my mind rather prominently because, starting last night, rather out of the blue, and for the first time ever, I thought what is truly and literally the most horrible thought that I’ve ever had in my life:  I wished that I would simply forget that I had ever met my ex-wife, and thus that we had ever gotten married and, of course, that we had ever had any children.

I cannot wish never to have actually met her and had children—I would not wish for anything that would imply their nonexistence, even though all such wishes are trivial and powerless.  I just wish I could forget all of it, because it’s all just a source of pain for me now, and it’s indisputably the case that I provide no benefit to my children (let alone my ex-wife) anymore.

I guess it’s a little like that movie The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I’ve never seen** and never intend to see.  Make no mistake, if I could eliminate my memories of my ex-wife and my kids, I don’t think it would solve any problems.  I doubt it would make me any less depressed.  But at least I wouldn’t just keep missing them and thinking about them and about what a failure I am at the things that matter by far the most to me, and how the people I’ve loved most in my life have all left of their own accord sooner or later, because being around me for too long is literally detrimental.

Of course, the fact that I am living in Florida would require some kind of retroactive justification.  Though I could surely confabulate some manner of explanation—I’m nothing if not good at conjuring stories—it would probably nag at me, and I’d try to look into what really happened in all the missing time between when I first met my ex and when I last saw any of my former family in person, about twelve years ago.

When I first got out of prison and went up to visit my parents and sister, my Dad specifically said that I was welcome to stay with them.  He knew that I was writing my books, and my parents both supported the idea of me being an author (they were avid readers).  But at the time, though I was grateful for the offer—I’m not sure I adequately expressed that gratitude, but I felt it—I wanted to come back down to Florida, to live where I live now, because my kids were here and I wanted to be close to them so I could be part of their lives.

Of course, it was they who didn’t really want me to be part of their lives, and indeed, my son didn’t/doesn’t even want to interact with me at all.  So, I’ve been completely wasting my time down here.  Sure, I’ve written stories and wrote and played some music, and I’ve been writing this stupid, pointless, useless, valueless*** blog most days—but all of that, when added to a buck fifty, won’t even buy you the cheapest cup of coffee at Starbuck’s.

I wonder how my writing and stories would have been different if I forgot my family.  I wonder how my life would be different.  Almost certainly, it would be no better; the tendency to fuck everything up is inherent in me, so it probably doesn’t matter what my circumstances are.

I hate my life and I hate myself, and the only person from whom I cannot be separated is myself, the person I hate most in all the universe.  I guess what I really want to have erased is not just my memory of my ex-wife and my children, but me.

Unfortunately, though I do not consider suicide immoral, I do find it difficult, due to powerful biological drives that cannot simply be voluntarily overcome by effort of will, any more than I can choose not to digest food or not to breathe.  Thus, not conscience, but an evolutionarily selected drive, makes a coward of me.

Come on, cancer!  Heck, I’d be willing to embrace the fungus****, I think.  I’ll even settle for just an accident, as long as it doesn’t get innocent people hurt.  This whole continued existence thing was ill-advised from the first, and now I’m just throwing good money after bad, one of the classic logical and behavioral fallacies.  Something needs to be done.

Oh, well.  I hope all of you, at least, have a good day.

*I know, I know, it hasn’t been very long, it’s just that these are the sorts of things that go through my excuse for a mind.

**As far as I can recall, anyway.

***To say nothing of “redundant”.

****”Embrace the fungus” almost sounds like a catchphrase, but I don’t think it’ll ever become popular.