Who am I? Lost and Not Found.

I want to write a definitive statement of who I am. I don't like myself. That is not entirely true; I like my spirit and what that represents. But how that spirit manifests into my personality, crystallizes into human form, I don't like.

In realizing how I feel, I am apt to blame others - my wife, for presenting a difficult and challenging presence in my life, although I would face those difficulties and challenges nonetheless; - my parents, for not guiding me to understand my personality, my depression, and the fact that my happiness should be paramount. It is easy to blame, of course. But ultimately, I assume the final responsibility of how I feel.

And since I assume the final responsibility, only I can change and transform how I feel and myself. The problem is that the paths towards those changes and transformations are paths I don't know or don't see, and the ones that I do see are ones in which I stand paralyzed from taking steps.

That is why I feel like a failure; I don't seem to be able to get out of this paralysis. I think this is why people contemplate suicide, because they live with pain, and they can't bear it anymore, and don't see how the pain will ever end.

I have a daughter, and I know to her, I am no failure. But how do I live for myself.

I was really moved to start writing here after hearing a NPR piece about depression by someone my age, 35, who deals with it. He even analogizes the Matrix, which led my wife to question whether I actually was the author.

My wife, she is a good person. A rough personality, particularly for me, but a good heart and soul. S he deserves so much better, a loving, affectionate, enthusiastic husband, who is a good provider, all the things that I can't seem to be.

I probably deserve better too, the chance to feel better about myself. But how? How do you make that happen?

Writing is a release, a means, not necessarily the panacea. I am lost and not found.

The real question is who am I? Who is lostandfound? Attorney, intellectual, family man, political, community person, who am I? How will I remember my life and how will I be remembered?

As someone who suffered and in the process, helped a few folks along the way?

If I am not meant to do anything great, whatever that means, than should I not at least find my inner happiness? Isn't that the ultimate measure of greatness or success, even if you achieve worldly greatness.

That is why I feel as if I failed or am failing. I can't seem to find happiness.

So then what? I am lost and not found.