Facing the Hard Truth

I reached, what I think, was my lowest point ever Saturday night into Sunday morning. I didn't want to be alive anymore. I wrestled with this for hours from late into the night into early in the morning. Finally, some rational part of my brain that was still functioning told me to call 988. I was immediatley put through to a counselor. For an hour I poured out everything that was wrong with my life, chronic health issues, mental health issues, a missed promotion, a shitty job. For an hour I spewed and the man on the other end of the phone never tried to fix me or solve any of issues. He just calmed me down. I'm not dead so his methods worked. But as I searched for what had driven me so low the answer came in a way I was not expecting. I had hopes, dreams, expectations, and wants. I built things up in my head, good things might happen to me, and time after time after time after time I was disappointed. Some were just minor that bummed me out for a little while. Others were bigger that drove me to a very low, dark, and quite frankly, scary place. So it was time to look at my life. As for my career, I know now that I have topped out. The doors are closed. I will be working in the same shitty office, unless a new boss decides they want it for themself, in the same shitty building, doing the same repetetive shitty work until I'm 55. If I accept that, I will learn to live with it. I will never be a historian. Despite years of education and work I have gained no traction as a historian. I was once told I looked too stupid to do the work I do. Maybe there is something there? There is not a person that respects me or the work I do. The two books I've written have sold less than 100 copies. Combined. I once submitted a piece for peer review. It was rejected and the company sent me the rejection letter as well as the comments the reviewers had made. The one that sticks with me even to today was "This author should stop writing." I think its time I took his or her advice. I'm not a good father. I tried all summer to do things with my kids on the days that I saw them but with few exceptions I failed. In a few weeks they will go back to school and I'll become a transient figure in their lives once again. I will see them at dinner and in that hour between dinner and bed. Some saturdays, assuming I'm not called into work because of some dumbass reason, I'll be with them but I know in their minds I will be missing from most of their childhoods. To paraphrase Jack Aubrey, not every man becomes the man that they expected to be. I thought I was going to be someone that mattered. But I'm not. I am an NPC in the game of life. I live in the background. My only hope at this point in my life is that my kids, who I do provide health insurance for, will make something of their lives. I hope they will not be like me. So that's it. What was triggering my depression, my bipolar disorder, was hope. Now I think some people may misconstrue my new attitude on life as giving up. Its far from that. It's living in the present and accepting what is. I was always striving and hoping for something better rather than trying to find the good in what I have. I'm just accepting what is. So there it is. I've looked at my life. I've seen the darkest and the worst parts of it. I'm doiong away with those and moving in a different direction by keeping my bow headed in the same direction.