David McElroy

It was just a fleeting part of a dream, but it’s been bothering me for the last couple of days. It had been a happy dream until that moment. I dreamed that I was married and had a family, although I don’t know who my wife was. We were all at home. Everything was normal and good.

Then all of a sudden, I realized that my wife was disappointed in me — and I felt ashamed of myself.

She wasn’t even in the room, but I somehow felt her disapproval. I had let her down. I was fat, even though she had expected me to get into better shape. I wasn’t as successful as she wanted me to be. I wasn’t as ambitious as she wanted me to be. I wasn’t who she hoped I would be.

In that moment, I feared that I could never be good enough for her. And then I woke up.

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The world is out of focus for me tonight. It’s fuzzy. Unclear. Like looking through a camera lens that’s covered with raindrops.

The problem isn’t the world. The problem is in my head. Or in my heart. It’s hard to say. I just know I’m the problem. The world is still just as dysfunctional as ever, but it’s no different than it always is. The change is in me.

I didn’t enjoy dinner tonight. I didn’t enjoy the company I had. There was nothing wrong with the food. There was nothing wrong with the woman with whom I ate. But nothing felt right. Everything felt wrong.

I don’t know what I want.

There’s an empty feeling gnawing at me. I want something, but what? My life has always been centered around the answers to these questions. What do I want? What do I need? What am I trying to accomplish? Whose love am I trying to win? And now?

I don’t know what I want.

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I have real trouble loving other people.

I sometimes joke that there’s a wide-ranging conspiracy to turn me into a misanthrope — and the conspiracy’s working. But the truth is simpler than that. I’m hard on others because I’m even harder on myself. And it’s hard to stop silently screaming at others when the same inner voice is screaming at myself.

I really want to love other people. In my heart and soul, I know it would make the world a better place. When I was a child, I listened to preachers talk about loving everybody, but I was confused. I discarded their messages as “happy talk,” because I saw that most of them were selective about who they loved and who they hated when they weren’t preaching.

As an adult, I’ve had a growing understanding that Jesus was serious when he talked about loving others. It wasn’t just “preacher talk” that we could ignore until Sunday. The closer I’ve been to the Creator, the more I’ve felt that unconditional force of love — and the more I’ve known that love should connect us all.

But most of the time, I interact with imperfect people. I silently rage at them for not being perfect. For not being what I want them to be. For not being more like me.

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