The tentacles of obligation

• Work stuff, which I should be doing now
• Insurance stuff/Medical bill stuff: where to even begin?
• Quinn appointment stuff
• Dust Storm stuff: logistics
• Dust Storm stuff: publicity
• Dust Storm stuff: get the show back on its feet
• Thank you notes from holidays
• Catch up on sleep
• Deposit a check
• Valentine's Day stuff
• Clean up holiday decorations
• Bunch o' stuff from to-do lists scattered around my desks
• Oil change for my car
• laundry stuff (always)
• Update Internal Monologue to the new templates
• Return The Tudors season 2 disc 1 to the video store (too impatient for the NetFlix!)
• Suff that should be fun but can feel like an obligation anyway (D&D campaign 1, campaign 2, campaign 3, getting my new GPS to work, setting up my laptop as my main computer)

And of course the usual day-to-day, some of which got on that list and some of which did not.

Somehow the balance is out of wack and my time feels like walls are closing in on it all the time. Just recently evening has seemed to become incredibly short. The time between when obligations are filled (or just pushed aside) and when Quinn's schedule demands I go to sleep seems to have collapsed into a barely over an hour strip of time spent in a sleep-deprived daze avoiding things I "ought" to be doing.

Being a father really blows sometimes. I love my family, but it is a snake pit of obligations and duties that are incessant and unfulfilling. And I didn't feel that way before Quinn. I used to love being at home with Sarah. We would cheer everytime we came back home from somewhere, even if it was a vacation, because home was so wonderful, so safe, such a place of renewal and rejuvenation and comfort. No longer. I used to never understand why people avoided their homes by spending so much time at the office. But god, this place, with all its dysfunction, is so much quieter and safer and attuned to my needs.

Everyone who has raised children deserves a fucking medal or three. I feel like race car that's been pressed into service as a dung hauler. I feel like I should go around wearing a sign that reads "NOT OPTIMIZED FOR THE CARE OF OTHERS". But who would read it or be able to heed it? Sarah's as busy as I am, so I can't fairly ask her to do more. And Quinn doesn't give a rat's ass what I'm optimized for or how much sleep I need. I've never had to be around someone so needy for so long. I've always been able to get the hell out of miserable situations before, to close the door to my room and tell the world to go fuck off. Oh, for the ability to do that now!

For an introvert, there is nothing more scary than another person whom you can't get away from, who can take away any quiet moment, interrupt your sleep, demand your attention, and is 100% designed by nature to insist on his own needs being met and to be utterly oblivious to yours. And the kicker is, because of Quinn's Fragile X, I don't know when the fuck it will end, if ever. I suppose we can move him to a group home or something at some point. Or maybe we should move me to a group home.

I used to fantasize about affairs with attractive women who were extremely eager to cater to my sexual proclivities. Now I fantasize about having an affair with a woman who travels extensively and lets me use her very quiet, empty apartment to curl up with a good book and a cup of tea and then sleep uninterrupted for nine and a half hours.

Maybe drugs are the solution: the purpose of pain is to let you know that you should get out of the pain-causing circumstance. But if one cannot do that without shirking one's moral obligations to one's family, doesn't it make sense to use pharmaceuticals to enhance one's mood? A pain signal that has to be ignored is really just distracting noise, and should be eliminated, no?

Or maybe there are other things in my life that are going to have to give way. Work? Play? The energy it takes to pretend I give a fuck about other people? What lamb is next to have its throat slit on the gore-stained altar that is "caring for a special needs child?" The knife is out, the god wants another sacrifice, and his wrath is terrible to behold.

I better get back to work, I have to leave by 3:30 to pick him up from school.

Sigh.