06.06.04 - 10:25 pm

i backed my car into a cop car the other day. well he just drove off, sometimes thats ok.

i just want to come home and sit and be by myself after work. i dont want to deal with sarah. i dont want to deal with ashton. i dont want to deal with bills. with terri. with reasons why i dont go to bars. with finding food. with homework. with slipping grades. with not having enough money to pay abby. with clothes all over my floor. with an unorganized room.

i just want to sit. and be by myself. i like being by myself.

i love being around people though. just, when im ready.

these are the issues im dealing with as of this moment:

not enough money. i had 260 dollars or so in my bank account at the time as of the 28th of may. but slowly, after buying food and gas its been slowly dwindling down. kim hasnt paid her part of the rent. terri came and picked up the 1500 dollar rent check. im praying that she doesnt cash it until monday the 14th. after i get paid. as i do every term, after the financial aid runs dry, i struggle until i can get on top of my bills. this wont happen until after im done with school and im bumped up from 20 hours a week to 35. then, ill be ok. then it wont matter that i have to pay abby 87 dollars when sarah demands it.

i have just a few wants that are consuming my patience. i want my two clown fish. at the least, if anything else, thats all i want. i want 4 female lyretail anthias. i want a sohal tang. i want a hair cut. i want some beeswax lip balm. i want groceries. i want gasoline in my car. over draft charges really screwed my financial abilities. if it werent for them, i wouldnt have a problem right now.

sarah has become a burden. she gets so upset. i say always. over anything and everything. but she disagrees. she says shes not going to believe anything i say in regards to her behavior because...i dont pay attention anyways.

but she gets upset when i tell her not to come down because its not appropriate. because i have a paper to write thats due tomorrow. because i want to go to bed early and wake up early because ill be typing all day tomorrow. "you should feel the wrath of your son not going to bed early." no, no i shouldnt.

i would understand if she was upset about me telling her to not come down if i really had no reason for her to not come down. then that would be suspicious. even a little weird. and yeah, then she should get upset.

there have been so many times lately, that have reignited my feelings of disdain for her. little red flags that go up and remind me just how much i hate her for what she did.

"maybe if things had been different between us when i got pregnant, i might have wanted to do something different."

nice. so had she not broken up with me because of her drug problem, she would have been able to make a more responsible decision. one in which both of us could be happy. her with her drugs and declining health, and me with my unhindered freedom and happiness.

i have to pay abby 87 dollars for watching ashton. she says i should be so thankful that she has siblings to watch ashton.

i am. more so thankful for this than anything else. but what bothers me is that i have to be thankful for something like this. i have to be thankful for sarahs generosity that still costs me money that i want for myself. that i dont want to give to someone else for doing something that i never wanted to have to deal with in the first place.

im closing in on a year since his birth, and im still loathing of sarah for it. like ive told her, which becomes more and more certain every time im reminded, i wont ever feel any different about this. i will never be glad sarah stayed pregnant.

it was my fault she got pregnant.

it was her fault she stayed pregnant.

i dont blame ashton. i dont resent him. i dont hate him, or think ill of him. thats never been a problem. everything always falls on sarah. sometimes i hiss out the very word.

religion and marriage. to me these are two instituitions that remain sacred to me.

marriage, i take it very seriously. i do not plan on getting married until a point late in my life in which im completely confident in my decision. until i know for sure that not only is she someone i can spend the rest of my life with, but that i am ready for such a commitment. i dont believe in getting married with the possibility of divorce later on, and having it be ok. i dont care that the dissolution of my parents marriage may or may not have influenced my feelings on this. what i do believe is what i see and hear and experience all the time: divorce. sarahs parents. my parents. my friends parents. 50% of all marriages failing.

i dont want that to be me. even if divorces are ok and acceptable. not me. marriage is one of the most time consuming and precious agreements one can make. one of the toughest and difficult relationships possible. i wont just wade into it casually like some 18 year old couple who think they are going to last as a married couple. yeah, its been done, but i have no faith in them.

religion. i want so bad to be someone of faith. someone with such a powerful unquestionable faith to be unyielding in my beliefs. however, im not. im nothing even similar. i believe in god, but not in the organized religions. i dont appreciate or respect their instituitions.

i want nothing more than to feel something so powerful and inspriation. something so obvious. i want to know for certain. i want a sign. a direct and personal signal that will forever change my life. i have a book from julias mom that is supposed to get me started. i dont think its what im looking for. or what i need.

sarah apparently is religious. catholic none the less. she wants to get ashton baptized. and i said that i didnt feel comfortable with it because we werent religious. as in, her and i. she wants it done so that if he dies unexpectedly, he will be saved and not have to be in purgatory. but i dont see the point if we dont surround his life with a sincere religious following. i dont think either our lives, sarah or my own, are worthy of baptizing ashton. it feels hypocritical. doesnt feel right. she says it doesnt matter.

she also says that i dont know anything about her because i didnt know she was catholic. she says i dont pay attention, because she went to church for 16 years and said her prayers every night.

she never mentioned god. she did drugs. she had promiscuous sex. i never saw any evidence of lent. any speak of god. the lord. the bible. any beliefs remotely resembling a christian faith. and she was angry with me for not paying attention. three people in her house told he what being baptized meant. i told her that to me baptism is meant to wash away your sins and transgressions. and that with catholicism, you wash your sins via a priest. with christians, you confess your sins directly to god.

i also told her that she needs to be baptized for her sins. and that so do i. she didnt like that idea.

too many people live their lives, as they wish, apologizing along the way in full knowledge of their sins, but with the context that as long as they ask for forgiveness its ok.

i dont agree with that.

but i also believe that baptism, to be cleansed, is an incredibly important and symbolic if not sacred act. and to have a young child be baptized, while important to keep from purgatory, means nothing essentially, if the parents do not act in accordance to the respect religion. it just doesnt...fit for me. like, we would be pretending. i just dont like it.

sarah asked me what religion i was. i said agnostic. she said what religion are my parents. i said lutheran christian. she said thats what religion i was because my parents were. that didnt make any sense.

im not a religion unless i practice it. unless i sincerely follow it and believe it. im not lutheran christian.

and i dont believe sarah is catholic.

monks are religious. julias mom is religious. my grandfather is religious. rebtevye is religious. the thorntons are not.

i just dont think people really take the ideas of christianity and marriage seriously. to them its as simple as buying a car, and then trading it in when the miles are too high and it looses its resale value.

i want to sell all my belongings, walk around in personally woven clothes, walk barefoot. i want a cane with a cross on the top and the biggest bible youve ever seen. i want to sleep on the ground in third world countries. i want to bear witness to countless faithless people.

thats religion. thats what i want.

but until i believe in it, im just a struggling college student without a faith other than evolution and charles darwin to prove everyone wrong. me and charles, mocking everyone who could possibly doubt the earths age or any animals origin.

and as for sarah, as miserable as i get with her. as frustrated as she makes me. as much as she tries to tell me i belittle her and make her feel stupid, and as much as i will always hate her for forcing me into fatherhood, i will care about her.