Nothing Happened

This is me: I work really hard, the rest of the time I sleep. Sometimes I play poker or spend time with Meg. Mostly I work.
Physically I’m bigger than I ever have been, stronger, fitter, faster, browner. I don’t smoke cigarettes any more. Sometimes I run, purely because walking takes so long. Running doesn’t hurt my lungs any more.
Usually I work in confined, uncomfortable places, small bathrooms and attics. I wear shorts, boots, earmuffs and a respirator, nothing else. I sweat litres. I am covered with dust. My hair stands on end and my hands bleed.
I work with an aggressive intensity, and when I stop I pant like a running dog. I like my work. I like big power tools and the constant cycles of chaos and order, chaos and order, but the fact that I’m low on society’s pecking order gets to me, it pisses me off and I’m more intense and aggressive because of it.
After I get home and shower I usually soften up. I snuggle with my Mrs. We drink tea and I tell her about my day, the little defeats and victories, and she tells me about hers. She’s studying to become a lawyer. That makes me feel better about my low social standing. I feel noble because I’m paying for our present while she works for our future. Just being with her makes me feel less dirty.
I feel like I’m changing.
I’ve stopped masturbating and my hair is longer than it has been in years.
I’ve been overwhelmingly sad lately.
I don’t feel sorry for myself.
I don’t feel damaged or hurt or angry,
Just overwhelmingly sad.
Meg was worried, but with surprising clarity I explained what I was feeling: “It feels like I’m releasing stuff,” I explained, “like I’m defrosting”.
She didn’t really understand. I didn’t really understand. Sometimes you just have to ride these things out and see where they take you.
I feel better now. I don’t want to cry any more. I still feel different though.
I want to be a writer, I always have. Sometimes I think I have to be a writer, I have no choice. I get so highly strung when I don’t write. It’s almost as if I punish myself for not creating, examining, analyzing, regurgitating. I’ve always been the same.
Maybe I don’t want to be writer at all, maybe I have psychological issues; a built-in overbearing stage mom desperate to live vicariously through the rest of me.
I started a blog so that other people could read what I write. I don’t think I was being egotistical. I wanted to help the world. I wanted people to feel less lonely and alienated. Now my blog haunts me. It’s just another thing for my internal pushy parent to hassle me about. If I don’t write the blog I become almost unbearable.
A couple of weeks ago I emailed a few magazine editors, detailing my literary achievements and prowess, asking for work. I heard nothing back. I suppose my approach was laughably unprofessional. I know about plugging away doggedly. I know about the time and energy it takes to move even the shortest distance along this road, but I cringe when I think about my innocence.
I’d like to be a foreign correspondent. I’ve got it all worked out: I’ll bring an emotional clarity and honesty to disaster reportage, without being hysterical or biased. I’m strong enough to deal with war, I’ve always known that about myself.
Sometimes I cringe while I write. Imagine: the boy who always wanted to go to war. Maybe I spend so much time facing fear and pushing myself forward because I’m actually a coward. Maybe that’s the only reason anyone does anything.
I’m getting better at playing poker. I usually make the final table now. Not quite good enough to win money, but close. When my luck changes and the bad beats stop maybe I’ll start turning a profit. At least I have fun, at least I have a hobby.
I don’t think I’m depressed. I don’t think I’m even unhappy. I have a good job and a fantastic woman, I write well and one day I might make a career out of it. My main problem is that I don’t like society much. I don’t like our culture. I think we’re greedy and selfish, willfully ignorant and short sighted. We stole this country from the Black Fellas. Stole it!
Now it’s ours.
There’s something wrong with us, we’re sick. We need to take the blindfolds from our eyes. It hurts to do it because we’ve really made a mess of things, but it feels so good to tell yourself the truth. It feels so good to see clearly, even if what you see is all crooked and tainted. There is beauty everywhere, and sadness and pain and birth and death. That’s what’s good about the world: it’s real. When it hurts the pain is real; physical and immediate, when you love or feel joy it’s the same; tangible and inescapable.
We spend too much time wanting, missing what we don’t have, cluttering reality with more and more stuff. We shop because we’re lonely. We frantically consume to make ourselves feel like we belong to something. We worship celebrities because maybe, just maybe some of their magic dust will rub off on us by association. THERE IS NO MAGIC DUST!

…

I sit, I write, I complain. Sometimes I make tea, walk barefoot to the bathroom or visit Meg in the kitchen. Sometimes I watch the clouds move above the palms outside my window. I know I’m writing clichés. I know a thousand people have already said what I just said. I don’t care. It’s just the way I feel. One day I’ll live in the country and grow children and vegetables. Then I’ll be further away from the idiocy of white men and maybe it won’t hurt me so much, but for now I’m young and fit, honest and strong, and I can practice what I preach because I’m loved and I can cry like a man. I don’t need much else.
I hope one day to make a difference. I don’t think I’m being naïve.
I try very hard to keep my eyes open, to see the woods and the trees. I hope I’m not being naïve.
I’ll probably cringe when I read through what I’ve written, but that’s ok, because I’m allowed to be a little naïve.