What happened
Or, how I got here
Lack of sleep brings out the creative in me. A couple drinks can do it too. My “seat of the pants” analysis of this phenomenon leads me to believe that I suffer from performance anxiety. Yea, that’s it, I don’t like to be judged.
And yet, here I am again. Putting electrons into the ether. Am I a narcissist? Any attention is better than being ignored? I don’t think so, but I’m not really qualified to diagnose anyone, let alone myself. I know I have shit to say. And I have this amazing new medium with which to say it.
This morning I woke up with a poem screaming to get out.
And almost immediately after that came another.
The second one makes me cry, every time I read the words I put down just this morning. Love and grief. Two sides of the same coin. One begets the other. It has ever been thus.
I write about these things because I have experience with both. They are powerful emotions. And both are gifts of the highest order. Bestowed upon us by the Universe or God or whatever the fuck it is out there pulling the strings. In the end, love is all that matters. Grief will follow love for every one of us. At least as long as we exist on this earthly plane.
I also believe I’ve been called to write about it. Why? Well, I had little to no desire to be a writer. I had no reason to believe I had any talent for it either. I started dating someone who wrote in a journal every day and encouraged me to do it too. So I did, for awhile. But then, like most things I start, I got bored with it and stopped. The relationship didn’t last much longer than the journaling. It had always been kind of fragile. It blew up around Thanksgiving and finally ended just before Christmas. More grief.
I looked at myself in the mirror on New Year’s Eve. It wasn’t a pretty sight. As heavy as I’d ever been. Out of shape. And pretty unhappy with the state of my life. I couldn’t make a relationship work. I drank too damn much. And I was not only getting older, I was spiraling out of control.
So I stopped. Drinking. Beating myself up. And acting like I had no reason to live. I looked online for a diet and workout routine to whip myself into shape. And then I followed it. And I’ve been following it ever since. I dropped twenty pounds in six weeks and am in the best shape I’ve been in since my thirties. More importantly, I found a reason to live, beyond the fact that I have four kids and a granddaughter.
Around mid-February I joined Medium. Mostly because I was reading a lot of stuff that I liked. At first I was just writing for myself and putting it out there for others to read. Then I found the partner program and realized I could kinda score my effectiveness as a writer. And that just sort of clicked. See, I need an audience to write. I don’t know why, it just seems pointless to write stuff that only I will read. Maybe I am a narcissist. Whatever, it gives me incentive to continue. I’ll keep writing as long as people seem to want to read it.
It’s also therapy for me. These last three months have helped me figure out what makes me tick. And I’m learning to deal with my emotions. Maybe the next relationship won’t be such a failure. But I’m in no hurry to test the theory. I kinda knew I needed some time alone before I started the last relationship. Grief, loneliness and hormones took over before I knew what was going on. I’ve apologized but I won’t be forgiven. And that’s probably as it should be too.
Anyway, that’s how I got where I am today. That and waking up at 5:14 AM.
Thanks for reading.
