My parents have had a terrible marriage for basically as long as I can remember. I have been anticipating their divorce on some level since I was about 11 (I’m now in my late 20s), and I don’t know why they don’t just pull the plug. In fact, I don’t even know why they got married in the first place; they don’t enjoy each other’s company, they don’t have congruent ideas or tastes on basically anything, they’re basically incompatible in every way.
I think they both would have been better off if they had split up early, never gotten married and never had children together. They should have married different people, or just not gotten married at all.
The obvious implication of this, of course, is that I shouldn’t have been born. This does cause me some existential discomfort. Thoughts occur to me like, “Why do I care so much about the future? Why do I pay so much attention to politics? What’s the point of advocating for socialism or trying to work towards a better future? I don’t have kids, I can’t have kids*, I don’t think I should have kids, and I don’t even think my parents should have had me. In a better timeline, I wouldn’t even be here anyway.”
*(I had a vasectomy a few years ago)
I would like to feel a bit more assured about all of this. What do you think?
I’ve had a similar experience growing up with my parents. My life is an elaborate cosmic joke, except I’m the only one that gets to hear all of it. The best I can do is laugh at it sometimes.
It sounds like you’re seeking meaning for your existence. I spend my days trying to think of ways to improve conditions so that others in our position aren’t as miserable, and so that hopefully, those born in the future won’t have to experience what we went through. I’m not doing very well at it, but I should improve the more I try.
I don’t entirely know why. I will never have children either, for similar reasons, although I have a penchant for queer sex and now feminizing HRT instead of a vasectomy. I’ve also recently been grieving my eternal lack of children, and the only thing that’s helped has been finding existing people to nurture. Maybe redirecting my newfound parental instincts is enough. I’d like to think my drive to better the world is more than that, but I find it hard to believe my brain works on much deeper of a level, despite my best efforts. I don’t think that matters too much.
I don’t and can’t know what will work for you, and maybe you can’t, either. Maybe work towards implementing that better timeline you can see, even if it means you don’t exist anymore as you are now? I think it’s pretty cool you can see through spacetime like that, anyway. Maybe it’s part of being an anomaly.
Damn, that’s an awful lot of maybes. Nothing is too certain, after all. Try to let that liberate you instead of weigh you down.
…woops, i almost forgot im just a silly chimkin bukbukbukbokbAWK