Prayer and Blogging

In the past, I bought the party line that one should pray without carrying around a bunch of expectations.  Various theories have been suggested, such as “in his time” or “according to his plan” regarding why praying with an expectation of a specific result will leave one disappointed.

I will never pray again.

I can handle the notion that prayer is just having a conversation with God.  I feel like it would be silly to come to God with a laundry list of expectations.  These notions, already engrained in the fabric of who I am, resonated with the typical sales pitch for prayer, and praying without expectations.

But my friends, my fallible human friends, have several attributes that God is severely lacking, and I’m not talking about something so mundane as tangibility.  I can have a conversation with a stranger on the street, and have one particular expectation that God, unlike any other person I’m likely to meet, will fail to address.  Regardless of results, any ordinary human being, told my story (without regard to being able to understand the language, and reading only my expressions, posture, and tone!) will rarely fail to show some measure of empathy.

I can thank Craigslist for this revelation.  Before I went blogging, I would post on craigslist.  My primary desire in life is, and has been for quite some time, to find my soulmate, in short someone who desires my presence and attention as much as I desire hers.  I’m okay with being able to receive gifts, affection, and attention, but more than anything I get a kick out of giving those things constantly.  So my most common prayer, sent out over craigslist, involved trying to describe this person.

This evening, I caught myself wondering if it would do any good to put out an ad like that, describing the fact that more than someone to sleep with, I desire someone I can wake up beside, grow accustomed to the way she smells when she’s not covered in perfumes and shampoo with tea tree oil.  I want to wake up beside a girl all tousled and adorable when she sleeps.  Part of me was wondering this evening if I should consider myself in need of assistance with raising my children, and what the response would be on craigslist to a “help me raise my kids” ad.  Then I considered that I really wouldn’t want a response, it’s just something I want to get out there, to not think about anymore.  Craigslist is the man’s approach: you post a problem, and someone WILL respond with their version of a solution.  I’m not eager to hear everyone’s idea about who I should be dating.  I just want empathy.  Maybe not even real empathy is necessary all the time.  I can get real empathy from my friends.  Sometimes, just the illusion of empathy is nice, quiet, and soothing.  Hence writing in journals and diaries.

But I know I can pray.  And maybe God is out there listening.  Maybe God will have something important to say, or will move to meet some of my needs.  I know that prayer is an option, that it’s something I’ve always had available to me.  I’ve tried prayer, and I’ve tried blogging.

The relative anonymity of blogging is a better illusion of quiet empathy than prayer.  If I post something on here, I can check once in awhile, and there’s an outside chance someone has read it.  My friends might stop by and comment.  Or maybe someone reading the computer articles will browse through and find something that makes sense.  There’s the slim hope in my mind that it might even make their lives better.  Wouldn’t that be nice?

But when I pray, there’s no illusion.  There’s an absolute certainty that I’m being ignored.  I’m going to go to another AA meeting this week some time, and hopefully put up a better divider to partition off that part of my psyche that so strongly desires a mate.  I’m going to try hard to ignore the desire for my rib-woman, my help mate.  Because while I completely believe in the existence of God, I’m not certain of his relevance, or even his desire to remain relevant in human affairs.  And when I send a blog upward for viewing, there’s no comment.  There’re no hits.  Only awful, terrible silence.  And that kind of response is something I can’t get from any other living thing.

Serenity

Hi. My name is Eric, and I’m codependent.

It’s been about seven hours since I went looking for love in all the wrong places, and it’s still really hard for me to keep from shoving this window to the side and checking my email, hoping the girl I gave my email address and phone number to the other day at work will have decided to write and ask about getting a cup of coffee.

This last couple of weeks has been really crazy, and I recognized that even while it was happening, and felt powerless to slow the train down before it headed over a cliff. And there was obviously no changing course. Thankfully, I haven’t lost my job yet, which plays a pretty important role in keeping my life together. But I haven’t been paying as much attention to my kids as I ought. And I’ve been mopey and all depressed and feeling alone constantly.

I guess the biggest lesson to keep in my mind today is understanding the way simple beautiful things can be done wrongly, and become obsessions. I heard a guy mention an addiction to sporting activities. What’s so wrong about a desire to stay fit? I suppose even there, turning it into an obsession can damage and destroy the other healthy parts of your life.

For myself, I’ve been trying to find myself involved in a romance. My heart aches to be with my soulmate, wherever and whomever she may be. That’s not so unhealthy. And that’s why it became unmanageable. It’s easy to tell myself that looking for love is something sane people do. Trying to find my one true love isn’t unhealthy, or abnormal.

But it’s been a long and fruitless search. It’s like shopping for produce at that other produce store, where something like one in five of whatever you’re looking for is edible, which makes trying to find the very best one an interesting challenge. There are a handful of women that I would probably be compatible with. And there are a ton of crazy ones. And this whole time that I’ve been looking for a sane one, I’ve allowed myself to become insane.

I got mad at God the other day. My basic premise was that we had a deal. I would participate in an ongoing mission to help protect someone, and he actually offered in exchange to take care of my love life and career. I found myself feeling betrayed and let down because my task is an ongoing one that requires performance on a daily basis, and I felt his should as well. I felt cheated, still do, in the way that if this were a real-world contract, I would be threatening to sue for breach of contract for failure to perform.

But I forgot that agreements with God and his keeping his word falls squarely into the category of things I cannot change.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. God’s performance isn’t something I can change. Nor is the finding of my soulmate. It’s easy to get tricked by my hunter male instincts, but ultimately, it’s not something I can impact.

I still feel sad that God isn’t doing anything to help, it seems. And I would still really like to wake up beside The One. But my priority needs to be keeping my head straight, and finding my place of peace and stopping the chaos and panic of trying to control something that’s not mine to control.

Mad at God

Not that anyone asked, or particularly cares, but I’ve decided I’m pretty upset with God.  Finding my soulmate is a pretty big deal to me.  In general terms, my concentration is better, I’m happier, and more contented, when I can pour my heart out to someone that I love and care about.

I have kids.  I love them like crazy.  It’s a little hard to explain my emotional needs to them.

But this is an ongoing issue.  I’ve tried like crazy to do the right thing, to live the way I’m supposed to.  I married a good Christian girl and was faithful, only to have it taken away.

For all the people who like to suggest that “God will never give us more than we’re able to handle”: bullshit.  History, each and every day, even the Bible itself, are full of examples of people who are given more than they can handle.  Cain wasn’t evil.  He was fed up with frustration and inadequacy.  Judas was obviously given more than he could handle.  If Jesus were God, he had to have known that staying awake was more than the disciples could handle.  Thousands upon thousands of starving children die each day because they can’t handle the malnutrition.  Good, honest hard-working people end their lives every day because they’ve been given more than they can handle.

I would function so much better with my rib-woman at my side.  So why not?  Some greater plan?  I think not.  I’m trying hard to be a good father for these kids, who get no say in the matter whatsoever.  And is God looking out for their well-being by bringing me Miss Right?  Nope.  He’s going to let us shrivel on the vine, myself, and my kids downstream.

Talk about naive, I keep on running around with the notion that some part of the universe is based on merit, that those who try harder, who act with more sincerity, will see better results.

This is why people switch allegiances, or become atheists.

Not that God really cares what I do.  Not that it particularly makes a difference whether I’m mad at God or not.  My particular emotional needs are, it would seem, irrelevant.

Guess we’re on our own.

On Vulnerability

Whenever I find myself getting emotionally attached to a girl, I turn into a social cripple, and end up feeling broken.

My friend Twyla and I were just talking about it.  If I can keep things on a physical fun level, I’m fine.  I can walk up, get a phone number, and close the deal, so to speak, within a week.  I’ve learned the fine art of sending signals of attraction, and switching gears from gentleman to force of nature at just the right moment.

But put me in a situation where I’ve got a crush on a girl, and I turn into a bumbling idiot with no bearings whatsoever.

The whole time I was growing up, all through high school, and until I left the country to move to Texas, I was pudgy.  I was even pretty fat most of the time I lived in Texas, was married, and had kids.  I had no confidence, which was entirely unattractive.  The last year I was married, I lost about seventy pounds (which has since been cut down to about fifty five, but it stays there).  I began to get a bit more attention from customers and even my wife about my looks.  Working at Rent-A-Center with the associated deliveries and repossessions had grown my arms, and I was no longer the soft quiet chubby kid I’d once been.

When I was that chubby kid, I guess the part of me that wasn’t thinking so clearly thought for sure that if I could be skinnier, and more handsome, that I would become attractive to the girl I wanted to share a romance with.  I assumed that my looks were the only thing keeping me from snagging the woman of my dreams.

I guess I didn’t think that through too clearly.

My looks were keeping me from getting physically involved with women who wouldn’t like me for who I am inside.  Now, I’m free to get involved with women who like me for just having confidence and being attractive in general.

It’s ironic, or at least it feels that way, that I feel so naive around a girl I have a crush on.  I’ve been out on a drilling rig in the ocean.  I’ve moved across the country twice, once solo, once solo with kids.  I’ve bought houses, weathered a hurricane, and been married for four years.  My skin is not thin, and people who cuss me out on the phone while I’m working strike me as funny.  So it seems silly and stupid that this one thing should be able to get to me like this.

And every time things don’t click on an emotional level, I’m right back to where I started.  It seems I’m keeping that high school nerd around to help me forget how to be attractive, but only around someone I might be interested in long-term.

Adult Time

So yesterday I signed up for PortlandDads.com, a local fathers support group.  They were cool with having a not-stay-at-home dad join, which was nice of them.

But best of all, my friend Melody watched my kids so that I could go get a physical with my new health insurance, and even stayed with them long enough for me to go say hello to a girl I’ve been talking to for a few weeks now.  The girl isn’t kid-adverse, but I’ve been going stir crazy not having a spare moment to just be a grown-up.

I get the feeling like even if she’s not working overtime where we could trade childcare, that she wouldn’t charge more than I can afford.  It’s a huge weight off my mind that’s hard to describe unless you’ve been there. (And then what’s there to describe?)

Thanks, Melody.  By the way, I’ve got a box of Ritz crackers waiting for the next time you bring junior over.