jitters
I've thought of writing this for a long time. What 'this' is, I can't be sure. A promise to myself, maybe. I thought of being honest for a long time. Perhaps that's what I mean.
Little things remind me to be, but then the larger things eat those little things and I find myself embracing, for lack of time and maybe courage, the status quo. The status quo is that I am a good wind-up doll in real life, self-denying, professionally hiding my self where and when it matters. That I stuffed myself into a role people significant in my life expected me to fit neatly, that I landed myself with boys to assure my parents I'm on a conventional path to success, that I took a job I don't really want because it's prestigious and it pays well, that I remain the only one who can say 'I am fine' while my family dissolves amid the hot water because someone needs to be okay, that I do not think of writing and I certainly have no plans to use any earnings to support my writing, that I do and say what is expected of me and I do it in spades. The status quo is that when I think of what I do with all this capability and all these intentions I cherish in me, I want to retch. The status quo is self-loathing. Maybe that would belabor the point I mean to make.
See, these past two or so years, around the time that things began drying up and cracking at the edges, it became too conspicuous for my pretending nothing was wrong, and so -- I only did the things I loved in secret, where no one could see it and bite their nails and call it another failing.
I never pursued writing to the degree that I've always known is necessary for my own expression, because some people with power over me would have wrung their hands and deplored me where I lived 6,000 miles away. They may have called it all a waste. And after so long pushing writing aside, it has felt, when I try to write, as though any creativity I had is far past spoiled, unpalatable, and false. I write, but erratically, and I find myself wondering what the characters I want to dwell in would have sounded like if I had written them before I poured myself into things that did not speak to me; or, I wonder what they would have said and done if I had been true to myself, as I've been needing to, this past year or more.
I frequently struggle with cognitive dissonance that I bring on myself. As much as I want to understand myself, I'm afraid, sometimes, of the disagreements and the skirmishes I have with myself when I attempt it.
But this, right here, isn't an inner conflict anymore: I want to be in the world and I want to help it, I want that for my life's work. I want to..... save the world. I can't pretend to be any less deluded than I am; I want to try to save it. I will fail, of course, but that is what I want my life's failing to be. I don't want my life's failing to be that before I set off to do work for people who need it, and during my work, and after my work, I was too afraid to write. That maybe I stole a few words here and there, and if you look hard enough, you can find unfinished pieces of grand stories I once harbored inside me. I don't want that. I want to always be writing; I need that, I'm realizing. It saved my life once, and being away from the dedication I gave it for so long now, it's apparent I am no good without writing.
So there is the conclusion I needed to write out, as a promise to myself: I'm going to sit down somewhere else, and I'm going to start writing again. Writing in earnest, writing what I want to, writing because I need to. I'm going to write so that I improve, and when I improve I'm going to show off what I've finished; I'm going to work through fandom again because it's a beautiful outlet for someone like me, who needs the practice and the ease of expression.
This sounds ridiculously self-serving, and it is, but soon I might have the time to do as I like and how I like, and I don't want it to slip away from me again. If I must be all things to all people, that surely includes myself; surely I can learn again how to write on characters I love feeling love, and fear, and learning to unpack these behemoth ideas. Maybe I'll improve enough to make it worth readers' while.
I'm leaving to go exist in Kobe, Japan for the next long-while; hit me up if you're ever in the Kyoto-Kobe-Osaka area. I don't know that this is an announcement of a long hiatus, or a final goodbye to this journal (not to any of you and not to the internet, to be sure). You'll hear from me; I've been awfully good at distracting myself on tumblr and twitter whenever I need it, of course. I'm leaving for LA the day after tomorrow, and then it's the Captain America premiere (where I will.....die...........of joy I hope), and then I think it's the 23rd that I head for Japan. It's going to be busy, busy. But when it settles down, I intend to take advantage of that. I will.
Love yourselves. ♥
Little things remind me to be, but then the larger things eat those little things and I find myself embracing, for lack of time and maybe courage, the status quo. The status quo is that I am a good wind-up doll in real life, self-denying, professionally hiding my self where and when it matters. That I stuffed myself into a role people significant in my life expected me to fit neatly, that I landed myself with boys to assure my parents I'm on a conventional path to success, that I took a job I don't really want because it's prestigious and it pays well, that I remain the only one who can say 'I am fine' while my family dissolves amid the hot water because someone needs to be okay, that I do not think of writing and I certainly have no plans to use any earnings to support my writing, that I do and say what is expected of me and I do it in spades. The status quo is that when I think of what I do with all this capability and all these intentions I cherish in me, I want to retch. The status quo is self-loathing. Maybe that would belabor the point I mean to make.
See, these past two or so years, around the time that things began drying up and cracking at the edges, it became too conspicuous for my pretending nothing was wrong, and so -- I only did the things I loved in secret, where no one could see it and bite their nails and call it another failing.
I never pursued writing to the degree that I've always known is necessary for my own expression, because some people with power over me would have wrung their hands and deplored me where I lived 6,000 miles away. They may have called it all a waste. And after so long pushing writing aside, it has felt, when I try to write, as though any creativity I had is far past spoiled, unpalatable, and false. I write, but erratically, and I find myself wondering what the characters I want to dwell in would have sounded like if I had written them before I poured myself into things that did not speak to me; or, I wonder what they would have said and done if I had been true to myself, as I've been needing to, this past year or more.
I frequently struggle with cognitive dissonance that I bring on myself. As much as I want to understand myself, I'm afraid, sometimes, of the disagreements and the skirmishes I have with myself when I attempt it.
But this, right here, isn't an inner conflict anymore: I want to be in the world and I want to help it, I want that for my life's work. I want to..... save the world. I can't pretend to be any less deluded than I am; I want to try to save it. I will fail, of course, but that is what I want my life's failing to be. I don't want my life's failing to be that before I set off to do work for people who need it, and during my work, and after my work, I was too afraid to write. That maybe I stole a few words here and there, and if you look hard enough, you can find unfinished pieces of grand stories I once harbored inside me. I don't want that. I want to always be writing; I need that, I'm realizing. It saved my life once, and being away from the dedication I gave it for so long now, it's apparent I am no good without writing.
So there is the conclusion I needed to write out, as a promise to myself: I'm going to sit down somewhere else, and I'm going to start writing again. Writing in earnest, writing what I want to, writing because I need to. I'm going to write so that I improve, and when I improve I'm going to show off what I've finished; I'm going to work through fandom again because it's a beautiful outlet for someone like me, who needs the practice and the ease of expression.
This sounds ridiculously self-serving, and it is, but soon I might have the time to do as I like and how I like, and I don't want it to slip away from me again. If I must be all things to all people, that surely includes myself; surely I can learn again how to write on characters I love feeling love, and fear, and learning to unpack these behemoth ideas. Maybe I'll improve enough to make it worth readers' while.
I'm leaving to go exist in Kobe, Japan for the next long-while; hit me up if you're ever in the Kyoto-Kobe-Osaka area. I don't know that this is an announcement of a long hiatus, or a final goodbye to this journal (not to any of you and not to the internet, to be sure). You'll hear from me; I've been awfully good at distracting myself on tumblr and twitter whenever I need it, of course. I'm leaving for LA the day after tomorrow, and then it's the Captain America premiere (where I will.....die...........of joy I hope), and then I think it's the 23rd that I head for Japan. It's going to be busy, busy. But when it settles down, I intend to take advantage of that. I will.
Love yourselves. ♥