I have voices, in my head, they are talking, known only by letter, about a life I might once have had. I don't want them to stop. Not until they show me the way.
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Clarity came. I got excited. But I was overwhelmed. There was so much to do, and so little time.
I had wasted so much time.
And I battled myself. I kept trying to push myself back, back, back into that hole. The place from where I came. The environment that had created that.
Because the pull, an almost gravitational pull, back to what I had been, to what I thought I was supposed to be (nothing), that pull was incredibly powerful, impossible to dent, and deceptively comforting.
I knew how to fail. It was a step-by-step process.
I knew how to fail. How to respond to the failure. How to cover my tracks. How to appear publicly like things were OK anyway. And that I was in control.
I was not.
I knew how to search for an alternative to the failure. Failure usually being personal relationships, professional activities and earlier on, academic malaise.
That is the cycle. Fuck up. Explain, excuse, justify, start over. Fail again.
I think when I was younger I expected there would be a final failure. A terminal one.
Because none of this mattered. I don't know if it matters still. But back then there was no hope.
As I've said. Two is too young to feel shame, rejection, and embarrassment.
12 is too young to give up on life.
But, that is what happened. That is what I did. I saw no future. I couldn't grasp happiness or satisfaction, or hope, or love, or desire for anything other than not getting trouble and sometimes, waking up the next day.
And then, twenty-one years on. Seventeen married years and three children later, a breakthrough.
Of sorts.
Clarity.
Of sorts.
I still couldn't say what or who I was, or even yet was supposed to be.
It seemed so ridiculous.
Why ridiculous? I don't know. Even now, the same. Ridiculous.
A writer?
Can I be that?
What is that? Is that a thing? People really do that? For a job? A career?
So this is where the real me, the one I'd been for five decades (two decades of which I'd not anticipated seeing), came rushing back to the fore.
He'd tell me the reality.
"That's right, you fucking moron. How dare you think that could be you? Talent? You've got none. You keep telling yourself you're so good at all these things. Where has it gotten you? You're a fucking loser. Stop this shit. Get a fucking shitty job at a shitty company do some shitty task day after day after day pay your bills, don't ruin your kids any more than you have, and hope you live another thirty or forty years. Then you can die."
So what is this dialogue?
When younger I convinced myself I was being pragmatic. That I was doing the rational thing. That if I really went for it, a future doing something I actually enjoy and give a fuck about (illustrator/professional musician/writer) I'd just fail and the pain of failure will be much greater than the misery of not trying, not knowing if I would fail, and just getting a fucking degree in accounting, getting a job a wife some kids a house a grave plot and finally (thank you Jesus) a wooden box.
Wrong.
The pain of the not trying is far greater. Because I've now failed at what I didn't want in the first place.
Back to the clarity.
OK. Moving on. But overwhelmed.
I was excited. I was optimistic. Deservedly so.
Optimistic in a way I haven't felt since, I don't know, probably younger than 12. Maybe much younger.
But now I was being pulled in multiple directions.
The old me still held a prominent position in my head, voicing his stupid fucking opinions non-stop, continually dragging my mood down, deep, deep down, instantaneously, from high on life to sharpening the blade again.
I had to battle him, minute by minute, all day long, just to maintain a level mood, to maintain a minimal amount of focus, enough focus, to move forward, inch by inch, agonizingly.
It is so much easier to just be old me.
So, I began, slowly, unnoticed by the public, because I didn't have a "public", but I announced my arrival.
i am
At first. Just "i am".
Then "i am the writer".
Not "a" writer.
i am the writer
Capitalization and punctuation correct. That's no typo.
i am. I'm me. I'm the writer.
But now, fear, trepidation, regret, scars, damaged relationships, lost friendships, mangled career (that I didn't want but couldn't let go of because old me kept reminding me that I need it, everybody needs something to fall back on, just in case this "writer thing" doesn't work), unknown future, the fucking unknown future, the killer of dreams, the destroyer of lives, the suicide bomber of hope.
I own hundreds of books. Most I've never finished reading.
Even they make me sad.
How do I catch up on my reading? I've lived longer now than I have years left to live (probably) unless I plan to live to or beyond 100.
I kind of almost feel like shooting for that now. Which is funny, because 30 had been my target before I passed that "milestone".
There are millions of words I never wrote. They are not lost. They are all still in my head.
It will take a herculean effort to get them all out.
I have to try.
And that gets me excited.
That makes me feel alive.
That makes me want to wake up in the morning.
That gives me hope.
That makes me want to live.
Want to live.
Huh. Feels strange coming out of me.
Strange. A little uncomfortable.
Makes me nervous.
But, I think, maybe that is the new me speaking.
Maybe he's getting a hold of that fucking other-guy.
