Day 3, shaky steps, but free

13 Hours, 54 Minutes, 59 Seconds

I was out running some errands this morning, and it was hard to NOT stop somewhere and pick up Just One More Pre Roll.
I didn’t do it, and I am strong enough to not do it every single time from here on out.
I have a vacation coming up, and I have concern with it. Vacations are usually a time we ball out and fall off the wagon.
Can we not do it?
Can we do it responsibly?
Yes.
Yes, we can.

15 Hours, 32 Minutes, 51 Seconds

Work has been busy all day, which is good. Keeps me in the job and out of my head.
I’m sure I’ll be ready to cave around 5, I have an idle hour for my lunch and whew if I don’t have a project I’m going to go mad with craving.
I ought to hang some shelves. Oooh no I need to make cheese ball.

Day 2 : Electric Drewgaloo

It isn’t where to begin.
It isn’t when.
It isn’t why or how.

It’s actually beginning. I fear that once I unstop the keg, the years of pent up pressure will blow the facing off and wreak all sorts of havoc.

Why does it feel so uncontrollable?
My whole life felt out of my control, as long as I can remember.

My parents dual wielded love and discipline with staggering efficiency. A friend of my parents was babysitting me once, and when we were leaving their house to go home, I was likely operating on my usual level of Full Send. I don’t know what I was doing, asking questions, not sitting still, or something. The mother pinched my ear with practiced ease, giving it a twist and pull in one calculated motherfucker of a move. It’s the same motion I’d grow up and use on friends while playing the years long adolescent adventure we called ‘Titty Twister’ (or, I learned after outgrowing the time, a Purple Nurple? Oh my god the name makes sense. Purple Nipple from the bruising ok, I get it. For fucks sake, why was Physical Assault our love language?

Is it because we were all physically disciplined?
The more I hurt you, the more I love you? The more I take, the more I love you back?
Seems pretty fucked up.
Right?
That sounds abusive, right?

So, each time I was hurt as a means of discipline (or, would it actually be the Parent Venting Their Emotional Frustration / Lack Of Emotional Maturity?) I was never thinking “Gee, this is quite unpleasant. I simply MUST remember to not indulge in whatever flavor of mischief has landed me in this situation!”

I was thinking “OW OW WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON OW OW SHUT DOWN TO ESCAPE THE PAIN OW OW WHY”

I’ve read somewhere that you can’t properly remember pain, your brain / memory blocks it out.
Seems like a load of shit, because I remember it was excruciatingly unpleasant.
My brain doesn’t do a good enough job of blocking it out, so I run from it. I do my best to avoid remembering.
It’s nice living in an era that is RIFE with quick distractions at hand 24/7.

COVID changed that, my options for running shrank to the size of the house.

I spent a good year ducking and dodging through rooms, avoiding myself with increasing difficulty.
With a masochistic glee, I pursued a role that would land me working night shift for 4 months.
I love people, you are all so fascinating. I use that passion to avoid myself.

I’ve always known I need to peel back the layers I’d built up, bend back the safe door and let out all The Bottled Up Things.
I thought I was very patient, and I am with everyone except myself. I push myself so hard to do things The Best and The Fastest.
It doesn’t matter what it is, it must abide by a few simple criteria.

1. Do It Perfectly

2. No Mistakes

3. No Weakness

4. Do It Better

5. Do It BETTER

6. Man this list isn’t as easy as I thought it would be, I’m coming up with criteria, but then shooting it down immediately because it needs to meet the criteria that I’m trying to describe what kind of catch 22 ass shit is this.

So, I decide I’m going to work night shift because I will be forced to sit in a room by myself for 11 hours.
I spend those 4 months in a haze. It felt like I stepped just outside of reality, I was there, but 6 steps to the left.
THEN, the ante was upped unexpectedly.

Twyla the 12 month old Doberman puppy enters our lives.
It works out really well at night, I’m up to take her out every 2 hours, she is house trained in no time.
Have you tried to sleep all day with a puppy?
They like naps, but they aren’t for 8 uninterrupted hours.
My sleep for 4 months was running a marathon while getting sporadic breaths of air.

I stepped back from the reins and turned all the way inside myself to get a look at the damage.
The foundations seemed sturdy, but wow, there’s some dry rot over here.
You see the burn damage in the eaves?
It’s a bit of a shell of a structure, but there’s a lot of potential.

So I’ve been doing a lot of remodeling, and keep forgetting where I’ve put things.
Some rooms look so foreign I don’t feel at home. Some bits remind me of the old house, and it dumps me back into memory.

Sure, it’s strange and surreal, but. . .

I’m home.

Day 1, Having Fun

I’m trying to forget myself.

My past feels like a different life, and I’m trying to forget and remember it all at the same time. I do and don’t identify with it, and I remember the ‘breaking point’ was in 8th grade. Now I feel like me, but I feel hollow. My past self doesn’t line up with present me, and dissonance permeates my reality.

It’s uncomfortable to look directly at said discomfort
They say it gets better, and eventually it won’t hurt.

I check my calendar, but can’t find the date.
You aren’t catching up, and I can’t wait.

Here comes work, here it comes.

Ok, work came and is currently ongoing.

I need to make an appointment to lock down a PCP to start ADHD treatment.

I need a lot of things.

Like dessert.

Mmmmm.

I can not smoke during the week, but the weekend arrives and I smoke as if it’s going out of style.

I’ve only failed if I quit trying.

and I’ll never quit trying.

Day Three - feel more like me

I had quite a long draft going before my computer blue screened and I lost it all.

Rationally, I understand that it is a simple and unfortunate coincidence.
Emotionally, it feels like a targeted Fuck You from the computer.

Why do I personalize the actions of inanimate objects?
I’d reckon we all do, and in a uncharacteristic shift, I’m getting sidetracked.

So, in therapy today

sarcastically saves draft

I was trying to quantify what it’s like in my reality to properly convey the frustration / friction I run up against every waking moment.

sarcastically saves draft again

Those that are bilingual (or speak multiple languages beyond two) take in the world in a different way, specifically, while speaking their non-native tongue.
They hear the non-native speech, mentally translate it to their native tongue, then craft a response in their native tongue, and then translate it to the non-native tongue, and then reply.

It’s a bit like that, but I’m going to complicate it further.
I grew up in a completely different world / reality than the one we all currently inhabit.

Now, I take in existence in my ‘native reality’ and ‘non-native reality’
My conditioned reality, and my understanding of reality.

These two realities clash and collide, they are inherently incongruous, they are Yin and Yang.
They cannot co-exist because they are in open defiance of one another.

In my conditioned reality, everyone is an agent of the Devil out to get my succulent, succulent soul.
It doesn’t matter who the fuck it is, they are out to get ME.
Your grandma? Fuck her, she’s a demon.
My husband? Running the long con to get me to trust enough to YOINK GOTCHA SOUL BITCH
Our dogs and home? The wonderful life we’ve created? All a cleverly constructed ploy by The Devil to lure me astray from the path of righteousness.

In my actual understanding and experience of reality?
Your grandma? So sweet, I adore her. She makes great cookies, and she seems to see right through the hurt to my core and listens.
My husband? The patience of a saint, loves me more deeply than I have ever known or deserve.
Our dogs and home? Exactly that. Delightfully dorky doggos, they get it from me. The house? It feels like home. It has since I laid eyes on it, and each day it only sinks in more deeply.

Now, those two understandings of reality are happening simultaneously, and unceasingly. I am at a constant war within to help the reality I know is valid (my understanding) win out over the one I know is unhealthy and toxic (my conditioning).

When the conditioning wins, I sink.
When the valid wins, I rise.
I sink. I rise. I sink. I rise.

I feel like the little engine that could.

“I sink I rise, I sink I rise, I sink I rise.”
Well, I think in this metaphor, I’m on the downhill slope on the other side of the mountain.
“I sank I rose, I sank I rose, I sank I rose.”

I’m done with the sinking, the thinking, and lies.
I’m not repeating this shitty cycle until I dies.
It doesn’t matter if it’s good, it matters if I tries.
Too much denial and it goes right to my thighs.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by. I’m figuring this shit out, and I bet you are too.

Day Two, how did I do?

14 Hours, 4 Minutes, 14 Seconds.

My mind is buzzing with an undercurrent of craving,
It’s quite distracting. I try to focus, something I’m already bad at, and fail successfully.

I haven’t had rice krispie treats in ages, I have the marshmallows.

I have work I need to be doing, but I can’t turn the wheel.
I rest my head against the window and watch the exist blur by.
The engine roars, and I am pressed into the seat.

I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m getting there quite fast.

14 Hours, 7 Minutes, 35 Seconds.

I contemplate dropping the timer, it’s only a blaring reminder of my imminent failure.
I know I’m going to smoke tonight, for I have some stash left to smoke.
If it’s not around, then I don’t have the need to toke.

Phillip takes it with him each day, fighting the temptation all day is distracting and exhausting.
It’s relatively easy NOT to when I have no car, no cash on hand, or the energy to surmount the effort it would take to acquire it.

It’s a win in some direction, but I’m too foggy headed to see it.

LAND HO shouts the man at the top of the mast.
His voice cuts through the fog that slips and slides across the deck of the boat.
I wonder what it’s like to sit in the crows nest.
Do they sit there all day?
Do they take shifts, like taking watch at night?
I’ve heard it’s dizzying, and the ship looks tiny.

My palms sweat a little while I type, heights are… a mixed bag for me.
I love the view, and enjoy the perspective.
I don’t enjoy the compulsion that comes hand in hand with great heights.
It whispers between thoughts, until it turns to an internal war.

Wow, what an incredible view!
I can see so far, the trees are tiny, and look at the way the land jump is shaped by the river over there
only a few steps and we’d be whistling towards being done
I step forward to jump off the edge get a better look.
or make it easier to jump it would be so easy
I delight in the closeness of death details etched into the Earth
two steps and I’d be etched into the Earth as well
I’m not fucking jumping, I don’t want to live that anymore
This isn’t about what you want, it’s what I want and I say JUMP
Why am I walking so funny? It’s like I’m on tip toe.
yes yes yes jump do it jump jump yes
I stutter step towards the edge and I feel my calves bunch up in anticipation.
so close so close I can feel the relief of not suffering is so close just do it
I stop dead in my tracks, and feel a strange sort of ill. It clings to me still, a thick oil on the skin.
I’m gauging the effort needed to hop over the retaining wall.
C’mon, it will only be a few seconds, and then all your problems… aren’t.
All my problems won’t be, but all my love will go with it.
I turn and take stiff legged steps back to the car. I don’t look back at the canyon, but it’s all I can see.

I open up in a flood in the car, I tell Phillip how close I came to not being.
I tell him I’ll lose my free will before I lose my life.
I swear I’ll tell him before it gets this bad again.
I’m not going anywhere.


neither am I

What if I sit down and talk to you, the voice that wants to stop.
If I look it in the eye, will the pressure drop?

you’re worried it’ll get worse if you do,
but you know denial doesn’t solve the issue

14 Hours, 22 Minutes, 23 Seconds.

I want to find my voice, but I don’t know where I left it.
I scour my past with desperation, I want to find my self.
I don’t know if I was swept under the rug, or set out of sight on a shelf.

14 Hours, 36 Minutes, 46 Seconds.

I’m going to find something to do that’s NOT staring at this bloody counter with obsessive regularity.
Activity Of Avoidance is TBD at this point, but I’ll pick a direction and I know I’ll come across something.

15 Hours, 57 Minutes, 38 Seconds.

I made an open face egg / hot sauce / cream cheese toasted bagel.
I don’t feel hunger pangs much. I know I’m getting sober when I start to get them again.

I painted a swatch of color in the kitchen, I’ll see if it goes well with the existing color when it’s dried.
Hopefully it looks good, because I don’t want to paint over it.
It’s a golden yellow, like the color of twilight falling across the land as the sun tucks itself in.

I have a meeting here shortly, and I’ll be wrapped up in another right afterwards.
This is good, it keeps me from thinking about how badly I’d like to smoke, though at this point, I don’t.
I know I’m going to smoke later, so I can be patient for now.
If I don’t feed the beast later though?
IMPATIENCE.

Day One point I’m Not Sure

13 hours, 33 minutes, 22 seconds since the last smoke.

13 hours, 33 minutes, 39 seconds since I last smoked.

How long since I started? How long have I smoked for?

I first started smoking cigarettes around 14 or 15, I think? I remember taking my first drag on the sun baked asphalt of a very small town, walking with and belonging with my friends. We smoked together, and we stuck together. Smoking was the common social tie that bound us.

Emotional maturity takes -
Communication
Vulnerability
Trust

Hmm. . . CVT?

Continuously
Variable
Transmission

17 hours, 27 minutes, 35 seconds since the last smoke.

The hours between 10 and 16 tend to be the hardest for me, I’ve quit enough times to be excruciatingly familiar with the process.

21 hours, 54 minutes, 35 seconds

Lost myself in work today, I find that as the haze lifts, I feel more invigorated and more like myself.

This is good, this is what I want.

It’s hard for me to focus and get the words out on the page because I know I’m going to end up smoking here shortly.

I made it through 21 hours, 55 minutes, and 11 seconds so far.

I don’t know when my exact timer will stop, but it will.

Next time it’ll be longer.

and longer. . .

and longer still.

I’ve only failed if I stop trying, and I’ve been trying since I first lit the match.

39 minutes and 7 seconds.

55 Minutes and 16 seconds.

You have to swing big to win big, I think to myself.
You have to hit home runs to win? Sure, they help, but you don’t HAVE to hit them to win big.
Why, just look at ole… ah… Baseball Guy. They did the thing where they didn’t swing big and won big.
They can do it, and so can YOU!

I peruse job postings without doubt, and wonder at the possibilities.
I have knowledge and talents, look at all these companies looking for a hot barely unemployed body in MY area!

Squarespace has formatting I don’t quite prefer, I would like to be able to space things out better, or with some semblance of order.

Just like the thoughts in my head, the gaps are frequent and fast. Don’t stop to look or you’ll get caught up in the past!

I realized something profound on the porch and it was like I poured back into my skin.
The first time I ever smoked, there was a deafening pounding in my ears. It was my heartbeat, pounding and crashing, giving my mind quite a thrashing.
I sat back in my body, and my viewpoint shrank. The pounding is my fists and I’m desperate to get out. I’m rattling the door, really giving it the what for.
Today, when I smoked, I sat up in my body. My viewpoint grew and I was back in the drivers seat.

This is the feeling I’m chasing with the constant smoking, but I’m paddling up the stream against the current.
If I quit, I’ll get there, but if I stop paddling, what if I am carried away?

Well, I’ll learn how to fuckin swim.

1 Hour, 4 Minutes, 8 Seconds.

It’s really easy so far. :)

1 Hour, 55 minutes, 43 seconds.

Hmm. I see my old friend craving is back to knocking at my door. It’s at this point that I would usually smoke some more.

7 Minutes, 54 Seconds.

Here I Go, Again On My Own, Down The Only Road I’ve Ever Known

That’s not true, don’t you see, this is a sort of fallacy.

Every road comes from another.
That means if this road is rocky, I will get onto smooth streets again.

I have a story to tell you

but I don’t know where to start.

All stories have a beginning, but the really good parts are in the middle. I don’t want to relive all the mundane bits, but I have to get it all out to prove to myself it really happened. I disassociate from my story, and it leaves me feeling hollow every day. I suppose I start with a rough shape and then fill in the lines? There will be doodles in the margins, and sudden deviations into completely unrelated notebooks.

Oh… I get it now.

I have to start.

Oh, hmm, I’ve now realized that I don’t know if I have to get some sort of legal affidavits or waivers from my siblings?

What if I just change names? Would it offend them if I don’t ask? Would it offend them if I do? Why am I so worried about offending them?

Do they worry about offending me?

Do they worry about me?

Do they worry?

All I do is worry, I am worn and weary from unrelenting fears. Hard edges worn smooth over the pounding years. I’m so tired, all the time. Tired of worry. Tired of shame. Tired of waking to the same old game. I used to clutch my phone, desperate for a call. Now, I don’t think much of you at all. I have to live, and I’m trying. It feels like I’m not living, I’m dying. It’s a weight I wished I’d never picked up from the side of the road, I didn’t stop to ask questions, I squared up under the load. It is the weight of discomfort, writhing under the skin. Trying to will your existence off the bones that keep you bound within.

It’s not my weight to carry.

Dust fills the scorched air, stinging my squinted eyes.
I roll my neck, breathing into the knots. A cool breeze sings along my face, and I turn my ears to listen.

It’s not my weight to carry.

I leave it behind, my gift to the weeds.
I wonder if my posture will improve.
I sit up, and raise my desk to stand.
Like all things, it’ll get better if I try.
If I’m not trying, then I’m dying.

I’m done dying, but don’t know how to live.
I’ll do my best, and all I have to give.

Worst case, I tried.

Best case?
I’m living it.

Overblown Annoyances

Here are some things that make me irrationally angry with startling immediacy, to the point of comedically angry.

-catching a belt loop on a door handle
I will RIP this door off the HINGES I swear to GOD TRY ME

-creating a password that meets extremely strict requirements, to have the system say it isn’t valid
apologies to my poor keyboard for the immediate sarcastically excessive inputs
further apologies for contemplating turning the keyboard into a chunk of balsa wood at a 4th grade karate demonstration

-creating a password to have the system display that it cannot be an existing password
THEN WHY ISN’T IT WORKING WHEN I TRY TO LOGIN
seriously why are passwords so hard to create?
It seems like I have a Everyday Brain and a Password Brain.
Password brain is a one way door vault, all inputs are secure because they can’t be accessed.
Well, they can be accessed if I knew the password, but…

-a mosquito whining in your ear when you wake up at 2 AM
if you think I won’t turn on all the lights and hunt you down with a bat you are mistaken, you bitey bastard

-a small sound, the volume of which is inversely proportionate to the effort and attempts to ignore it
It’s not always going to be a dripping when you’re trying to sleep, but it’s usually going to be a drip

-starting a really good song and then skipping to the next one as you lock your device / put it in your pocket
how DARE you tell me what I want to listen to, you pocket supercomputer
Yeah sure it’s my finger that did it, but you executed my errant command so you must pay
oh no this one is my fault but so are most of them

-using the hose and having the water run down the hose / your arm onto your shoes
one of my least favorite flavors is Dry Socks so please fuck my shit up thank you

as I am making this list up, I notice that there are a lot of things that ended up on the cutting room floor. “
They’re all in relation to being clumsy and uncoordinated. I think this bothers me because I’m not particularly by default, but smoking consistently turns me into a cloud headed bull in a china shop. How many times have I backhanded a drink across my desk and keyboard?

Many.

It’s not all bad. I’ve learned a lot about taking apart keyboards, cleaning them, and how they work.

Shoutout to Logitech for making mechanical keyboards that can take a dozen spills and keep on typing.

I’m on my 3rd keyboard, I think, I put the newest on my personal PC and then the older ones trickle down to work stations or work from home stations.

How bad do I want it?

the letters jump out at me, shouting in their all caps print.

HOW
BAD
DO YOU
WANT IT?

Pretty bad
I want it pretty bad
things are already bad.
I need to edit this saying to be

HOW
GOOD
DO YOU
WANT IT?

I want it good
I want it as good as I know it can be

Wanting and wishing do naught but put strain on an already empty tank.
Yet I reflexively grab for the handle, and give it yank after yank.

I can be better than I am.

I am better than I am.

I am better than I was.

I am going to be better than I am.

Perhaps things aren’t as bad as my instincts are trying to tell me they are.
Old survival instincts I no longer need, but I don’t know how to let them go, I only know how to feed.

I might be back to flesh out this entry, I might not. It’s my weekend and I have chorin that isn’t going to chore itself.

Turns out the likelihood of me being back was inevitable. I am constantly getting distracted from the things I need to get done, and it’s a double edged sword I’ve found here.
On the one hand, I need to do this daily, but on the other hand, if I’m doing it to avoid my chores… I’m going to call in moral licensing and get the fuck out of here.

i put the big letters up here

I dip in and out of my memories with hesitance, flinching at the icy drops against my skin.

Why does it hurt to remember?

The empty lot across the street from our house turned to hay in the summer. The sun scorched the green out, leaving dust and grasshoppers behind.

Being a kid was an adventure, I took care of myself. I was an excellent babysitter with a glorious imagination, so I took me all over the world. I danced on tightropes between skyscrapers, hid from the cops, fought off monsters that lurked in bushes, and climbed to the top of every tree I could find to look at more of the world. I could journey alone, or party with brothers and sisters. We had loads of games and adventures we’d have when we weren’t at war with one another. All those bodies and minds cramped up, we were bound to jostle and bump against one another. I wonder what we’d be like if we’d all had complete freedom. Who’d be married? Who’d be successful? Who’d do what? Would Audrey be a world renowned artist? She’s so grown up and glamorous to me. Would Chase run a company? I don’t know enough about them to know who they are now. Time marches on and we all change with it. That’s good, we’re supposed to change. Curiosity killed the cat, but it fuels my burning growth.

Shit I keep forgetting I don’t smoke anymore.
Fuckin habits man, the bad ones are blackberry seeds in the molars of our lives.

cuele. That’s not pronounced how you think it is, I assure you. One time, I got so lit I couldn’t pronounce or remember the word ‘cool’, and ‘cuele’ showed up and took its place. Then it sort of stuck around, people seem to get what I mean when I spit it out instead of ‘cool’ so it slipped into my vercabandoliery.

How about the words we used to use, the long lost and dead slang terms? I don’t remember any of them, and I wonder what they were. I remember when dank hit the scene, rode up on a skateboard and took ‘Cool’s dream.

Deja Vu A La Drew

I’ve been trying to quit smoking since I started years ago.

I suspect everyone is, or knows someone who’s struggled with quitting. It’s hard to quit something that is as natural to you as breathing or eating. It’s so engrained in the daily routine of existence, you forget to fight it. I don’t realize I’m doing it until I’m blowing out a chestfull of smoke and ash. “Ah, shit, that’s right. I don’t want to do this.” Then, I’d beat myself up to the point of needing to smoke to cope with how much of an asshole I was. I’m not really an asshole, but sheesh I sure could convince myself I was for doing anything. On edge no matter what I’m doing, the voice in the back of my head tearing me apart and stuffing the shreds into a dark, moldy corner in an endless cycle.

So I keep on smoking, smoking, smoking. I don’t want to, and I’m watching it happen. It reinforces the familiar ‘I Don’t Want This And I’m Powerless To Change The Situation’ mindset I grew up in.

I Don’t Want This And I’m PowerMORE To Change The Situation.
. . . Yeah, that’s more like it.

Today, I was looking out my office window, watching Phillip wash windows while the dogs danced around in the flying drops.

it’s going to be uncomfortable, and then eventually, it won’t be. it’s not the end of the world, or my life. I’ll still be me, I’ll still think like I do, and be like I am.

It seems too simple to be true, but you know, I’m going to lean into it. I’ll only fail if I quit trying, and I’ll never quit trying.

Maybe this time it sticks. I sure hope so.

Hmm, seems doubtful, I’ll try that again.

This time it sticks. I sure know so.

That lasted two hours. Baby steps. Baby steps. We all learn to walk with baby steps.

Usain Bolt learned to run fast, he didn’t throw newborn arms back and sprint across the ward.

Baby steps. Baby steps.

First I was falling

Then I had fallen

I picked myself up

then fell again

Dirt in my mouth

sand on my face

push myself up

crawl through this place

sometimes I push

with nothing but feet

I slide past a rock

think to myself ‘neat.’

I shake

and I stagger

I stumble and trip

but I do not lose my grip

on hope

and desire

or my unquenchable fire

Just. keep. going.

I remember when and where it happened, and each time. A little of me got stuck in that painful moment, while my body went on without. I am locked stiff in each excruciating instance, unable to breath, cry out, or process.

I learned how to pull myself entirely inside myself and move through life on autopilot.

I’m locked inside my head, white knuckled and bleeding fingers clenched around the throttle, my broken and weary body braced against it. I pant red mist against a flickering screen, the cracks, they fracture the searing white letters.

Just. Keep. Going.

They blink away, the afterimage reapplied into my burning retinas.

Just. Keep. Going.

-blink-

Just. Keep. Going.

-blink-

Just. Keep. Going.

-blink-

and so I do.

I close my eyes and lean my sweaty forehead against my sticky painful knuckles, the bones grate and grind against my brows. Muted red flashes cut through my lids, and I see the words again flash in my mind. The veins in my eyelids weave in and out of the letters, an ivy of the iris, I think with a thick chuckle.

Just. Keep. Going.

-blink-

“Hey man how’s going today?” and rough hand claps my shoulder, knocking me out of my mind and into my desk seat.

I blink and slip into My Role like a well oiled glove. “I’m good man, living the dream. You know what they say, the dream is a Tuesday in here.” I twirl a finger in the air, gesturing at the sea of cubicles we stood in. I drop my finger and proffer my knuckles.

The speaker gives them a knock with their own and flashes a grin to match my own. “Let’s get that bread!”

“Gotta get the bread, because the bread isn’t gonna get you!” I fire off a few scathingly unironic finger guns and turn back to my computer screens.

I look at the time. 7 more hours. I close my eyes and sigh.

Just.

Keep.

Going.

and so, I do.

I think I try to keep a consistent pattern or ritual woven into my life as a form of control. I think I ought to update this every day at 2 PM, or create a short story every Saturday. Then, when I inevitably fail, I hold it up to the mob in my mind. “YOU SEE. HE FAILS. HE FAILS EVERY TIME.” The mob roars for blood, and through self destructive cycles, they take it.

Now I realize it sounds like I struggle with self harm, which I suppose in a manner of sorts, I do, but not with the blade and the blood. I have a stomach of steel, but I really prefer it stays in the dark where it belongs, surrounded by all my nice warm blood and unpunctured skin. I understand the pain that drives one to seek the slashes, but I don’t do it. Hey, you. Yeah, you. You’re not alone, shoot me a message, it’s ok. I wonder if I can, in time, foster a positive community. Nah. I used to desperately want to be a celebrity, but that’s because I wanted to be universally liked. That’s not possible. Then, I wanted to be whatever would make me rich, and that’s because I struggle with financial insecurity, it’s a huge source of stress. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about, checking your bank account before and after every purchase, when you woke up, when you went to sleep. Any time anyone mentions money, the first thought you have is “I don’t have any.” I don’t know when or if I’ll ever lose that, and I chased the cheddar hoping I’d get it.

Now, I don’t care about having money. I don’t care about universal acclaim. I care about being authentic and empathetic. I care about being a better person than I was yesterday. I care about being a better person than I know I’ve been. In my favorite movie, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, said Scott is facing off against the Main Villain who says

“You want to fight me for her?”

— Gideon

“No. I want to fight you for me.”

— Scott

Then a flaming purple sword explodes out of Scotts chest and he has a duel against Gideon and his digital cyber saber.

I’ve been working hard on getting to the point I get my own chest sword.

I make large strides, realize great self truths, and each time, I glance down with my eyebrows raised.

“Nothing?” I think.

My chest trembles slightly, but that’s just my heart beating.

“Beating to get the sword out?” I get hopeful.

No. Maybe it’s just palpitations.

I’ll get that sword someday, and it won’t be some large event. I’ll snap out of a daze, look back at all the piles of change in my wake, and then smile at the sword in my hands. I’ve been doing it all along. I’ve been doing it for me for years without realizing it.

That’s how it goes.

Blogging into the void as loud as I can type

I’m worried.

I’m always worried.

I’m so worried I don’t even feel worried anymore. I don’t feel anything.

I’m a pair of eyes wired to a ball of worry, all held together by a series of knots and tension.

I hold back from pursuing the things I am actually passionate about, because I worry about being bad at it. What if I don’t do it well? What will happen? Will the Do The Fuckin Thing Good Police kick in my door and shoot my audaciously untalented body full of holes? Will an angry mob show up at my door, kick it in, and shoot my audaciously untalented body full of holes? Will anything happen that doesn’t end with my audaciously untalented body full of holes? It’s a legitimate concern these days, with the way every other headline is screaming about headshots of various flavors. When I was young I was terrified an airplane was going to crash into whatever building I was in smear my audaciously untalented body into an audaciously untalented but amusing looking paste.

Now I sit at a job I despise, doing work I don’t enjoy, to earn a paycheck I need to pay for the roof over my head. Well, I’ve now realized, who cares? Are you talented? I haven’t thought about you a single day in my life. Who are you? You don’t know me. Shit, you don’t know me in the slightest. Why do you care if I care about you or your talents? Why does my opinion matter to you, and why would yours matter to me? It’s a dangerous sentiment though, because we need to care about how others think in some measure, else every single one of us would engage in some Pretty Egregious Things if we didn’t give a shit what anyone thought. There are two types of people in the world. There is You, and then there is Not You. I assure you, almost every single person you meet is going to fall under the latter category, you would do well to contemplate how your actions or behaviors would affect people you meet that are Not You.

Sure, I love spicy, but black pepper overwhelms your senses. To me? This soup isn’t spicy. To you? It’s unbearable. Who’s right?

Me, naturally, spicy is the best way to do things because it’s the way I like to do things.

No, we’re both right. This is one of the flaws in our programming, neither of us are wrong.

I set out to start a blog that would convey what it’s like to be in my head over the course of time. I think this is a perfectly indicative start.