Finding the past not so different from the present...

Here is a journal entry I found while going through my computer this weekend and, as it all still applies, I thought I’d go ahead and post it. It was written 3 February this year:

One of my brother’s listed wishes on his blog is for me to write more and to let more people read what I’ve written…this is my wish too – both prongs of it, in fact. There is a part of me that doesn’t want me to have what I think I know I want. If I want to be a writer, why don’t I write? Laurell K Hamilton mentioned in her blog that there are an amazing # of aspiring writers out there who don’t write. What, I wonder, is the problem? God! If I knew that I suppose I might be past this point by now! The life I imagine shows no other career, no other ambition except that I make my living as a writer…a writer sometimes w/a bar, sometimes w/a book shop but always a writer…the more ‘realistic’ dream, as some might have it, is the bar or the shop…I suppose it’s true to say more people make money selling booze or books than people who attempt to peddle the thoughts from their own minds…doesn’t seem fair but it makes a kind of weird sense. How many hundreds of thousands of writers are there out there? One needs look no further than the internet to find entire communities of writers who only write for their own amusement…no, that’s not fair-I believe many of these people write because they have a need to express something, a need to connect, however loosely with other people who may or may not understand – the point is to communicate, to feel as though they’ve made a mark of some kind. Few, if any, are great writers but some are good and many are passable if not particularly original or interesting. I think part of my fear stems from the thought that I might actually fall into that last category. While I like what I write (what little there is), I have this absolute need for the approbation of others…not just any others but others whose opinions’ matter to me. With that need, comes the fear that I won’t get it, won’t merit it and, ultimately, it seems easier not to try than to try and not get what I believe I need. How silly is that? What harm is there is writing if no one gets to see it? What harm is there in sharing what I’ve written and taking the chance? It’s hardly as if I would offer up a piece of writing that I didn’t feel was any good...which may be the point, come to think of it...

I guess that leaves me with laziness and fear once again…my ever-present excuses for so much. I’m still an overweight, single, office worker with smoke dreams of a life less ordinary…I dream of a future in which I’ve somehow reached the other side of this wall I’ve been crouching behind for so long I’ve gathered dirt and sprouted roots. My writing, what I’ve done in the past 12 months is dark with my own self-exasperation…my certainty that I cannot overcome my own will to fail is my very own self-fulfilling prophecy. I cannot truly fail if I never really try and that’s a safe, if everlastingly disappointing place to be. I’ve been saying this for so long it no long means anything but it’s well past time to start living my life today. All this leads up to…nothing. Plans for doing something different fall through the rotted boards of my resolve…self castigation ensues and the cycle starts again…one would think this fabric would be worn to threads by now!

You know, it occurs to me here that, in anyone else, I would be unbelievably frustrated to see such constant focus on what the past has been. I say, quite often in fact (so often one thinks of the ‘lady protesting too much’) that there is no sense in regretting the past – it cannot be changed. The only useful things to carry forward are whatever lessons you may have learned. Maybe it’s necessary to sincerely regret in order to get past the pain to the lesson? I don’t know but I’m willing to concede that on everything. I gave my virginity away on a drunken whim to a man I barely remember – I’m not sure I can even recall his name. One might think I’d have some emotional sort of regret for this but, I really don’t…or, if I do, I don’t feel it. All I feel when I think about it is an embarrassed sort of discomfort with the very idea of it. The first male to touch me and make me respond was James and I chased him off as quickly as I decently could. I have never been comfortable with the combination of emotional closeness and sexual partners…I don’t know why I just know there is nothing more likely to send me screaming in the other direction than some one I actually care for wanting me too…Larry made me feel things just by being near me and, when he touched me, damn, even remembering it now, makes me smile and frown. The smile for the feeling, the frown for the regret that niggles there for the lost opportunity, for the way everything just sort of washed out, for the lies I tell now to make it sound like more than it was, to create memories I’m more comfortable with. I wonder what he thought about it all? I wonder whether I really want to know?

I wish, I so wish, I would find what I need…and maybe I already have – if I were willing to honestly relinquish my illusion of control, I could take comfort in the idea that where I am is where I need to be and what I have, is what I need for now…but I find it difficult to accept and, maybe that’s why I’m still here. What lessons have I missed in all this…mundanity?...in this 80% pointless life? My job’s only point is to provide me w/the funds to live this life I’m so intent on avoiding. Ah, poor me, I make decent money, live relatively comfortably w/clothes to wear and food to eat, family and friends to turn to, animals to care for and ideas to work with. What I want, is to turn my will toward my goals, to remember always that every step I take puts me on a path to somewhere and that it is always my choice whether to take a step w/intention or to take one w/o thought past the moment. I’m feeling weepy w/the anniversary of my father’s death having just past – one of Rob’s wishes to be able to speak w/him again if only once more…I want the security of knowing he’s there, the peace in having some one who would always catch me if I’d only ask…my father had his problems and he definitely helped give me some of mine, I suppose that ought to go w/o saying but well, it didn’t, but he never let me down when I asked for his help. He wasn’t a bad person and I believe he did the best he could and I know he loved me and I certainly loved him and I miss him. I remember the feeling when he died of knowing, absolutely knowing, that life is far too short to continue doing things I dislike, saying things I don’t believe and dreaming of days to come. The only time we have is now, I believe that but somehow, I don’t live that. I could die in the next moment and what would I have to show for my life? Not a whole hell of a lot, that’s for certain. I want what everyone wants – I want to be happy, feel fulfilled, loved, appreciated…maybe it would be better to strive to offer these things to other people?

I feel so out of place most of the time, so like I just don’t belong where I am…I feel separated from people and, while I realize that is partly my own choice, I can’t help feeling like there must be some one somewhere with whom I might feel at home. My brother and the family night crew come closer than anything I’ve found elsewhere…it feels right to be with them but I do not stand out in that group any more than any other, I don’t offer much and not much is asked of me and that’s comfortable and comforting in it’s way. If I could write stories that could illustrate my experience for other people in an interesting way, I think I might be pleased by that. I wonder whether everyone feels this disconnected from everyone else and, I have to say it doesn’t look like it to me…maybe I need to make some serious resolutions – I need to say it, write it down, live it in every choice I make all the time…it’s a matter of choosing to make a difference in my own life, my own mind, my own reality.