Most people can pinpoint several painful moments in their lives that defined them - gave them resiliency, gave them character. These dark moments are horrifying and bleak at the time and may be so intense that we learn to block them out. Sometimes its sexual molestation by the happy-go-lucky alcoholic uncle. Sometimes its physical abuse by an overworked, resentful father after you accidentally break a window playing baseball. Sometimes its the grating emotional abuse from a nitpicky mother that compares you to everyone else and can't seem to find anything but faults with you. Sometimes its being called a "fag" and getting throw into a garbage can by a crew from the wrestling team. Sometimes its overhearing your best friend refer to you as a "nigger" behind your back during lunch. Sometimes its being so poor that you find yourself stealing clothes from the locker room and food from the cafeteria. Sometimes its going to the hospital after your brother overdosed on some drug that you didn't know he was taking and watching him get his stomach pumped. Sometimes its watching rent money get gambled away by the shell of a woman that used to be your mother before your dad left you.
These crippling moments grip us and later on give us that enduring push to write and create. To stop hiding from ourselves and let the pain go, or to experience the pain for the first time.
I'll admit that I have my moments, but they don't inspire me. I can let you know that I'm afraid. I'm afraid of never being known. Of always being lonely. Of getting close to someone who leaves me or betrays me. Of getting over-attached. Of never committing enough to get attached. Of not living up to my potential. Of being loved and not deserving it.
I can also let you know that I'm a terrible person. At least, I think terrible things sometimes. My imagination will run wild with possibilities. I could be a great thief, an unparalleled Don Juan, a secret assassin, a two-faced friend, a porn star, a politician, or cruelly vindictive to the slightest disgrace. I could be many things, but in reality I'm not. I'm a simple guy that's never cheated, stole, disgraced a friend, crushed an enemy, or made a spectacle of my sex life. I just think things.
Mostly I struggle with the knowledge that life is essentially meaningless. Not that you can't find things to give you meaning, just that there's no meaning in life just because its life. This doesn't mean that I don't feel things. But feeling and meaning are different. All meaning in my life stems from rebelling against the absurdity of existing at all. Because of this, I'm not afraid of anyone's pain, and I gladly embrace it all. I gladly embrace anything that helps make me feel that which I don't feel in myself.
Now, I'm not going to tell my stories this time. This time I'm just letting you all know that I disappear like a waning moon behind the horizon because my existence is tied to nothingness. If you can't see the beauty in emptiness you best stay away from me, because that emptiness may be the only thing that is a true anchor in my life. And, truth be known, I have a high capacity for love. It scares me. But, like I said, feelings and meaning are different things.
Sure, I'd be more than willing to show more of myself to you... but you've got to know how to ask, because I get lost in it. I often feel like a farmer on the field, in a mechanical flow toiling for the sake of the toil. The ritual suits me, but does not fulfill me.
I don't want you to show me who I am. I want you to show me how to show myself. If you want to know.
I've had a lot of dreams that I live in a desert. Usually I'm up at night, and in deserts the cold air and stars are beautiful and enchanting. The emptiness is serene and yet captivating. Often, I'm alone. And when I finally wake the world seems so full like it were to explode with a thought that echoes too loudly. But I always break the silence and find a way to trek forth.
We're survivers - writers that is. My path is probably not as enchanting as yours may be, because more of than not, sometimes some things happen which haven't happened to me. But I have my stories. And I survive.
