9/16/7 In Berkeley
Roaming the streets after getting off BART. Said goodbye to my friend this morning. I’ve found a coffee shop whose name I used to know, but now am ignorant of, of which I am now ignorant. Feeling very much so this morning. Ignorant. Adrift and irresponsible and unliked by my wife.
I walked across campus reminding myself of the names of the buildings. It’s a living cliché I’m creating here. I’m finding it funny, laughing at myself while I feel sorry for myself and disliking myself too for the neglect I show to my wife and my body. I tell myself I do this for my mind, that somehow these periodic escapes (and frequent inebriations) are a way of letting off steam, releasing what, I’m not sure. Now that I have come to live with the diagnosis and the medication, I occasionally find myself using it as an excuse, a justification for bad behavior. Or am I just bad? Flawed and chemically jiggered in an abnormal way – or simply lazy and self-indulgent.
I start, the feeling starts with a mischievous apathy, a why not and what does it matter. Then the thoughtlessness affects someone, usually my wife. And her reactions usually leave me feeling angry, irritated. Then I seem to come around and see how right she is, and I feel guilty and stupid and wonder how I can fix things until, and this is more pronounced lately, I realize I can’t. I must absorb her indignation, her response to the indignity I’ve caused her. My words mean nothing and my actions always disappoint.