There and Back Again
My friend is calling this "Julie and Julia, but with Eddie Izzard." I am calling this "recapturing--or, capturing, actually, since I haven't ever really had it--the will to live." It's both those things, except more.
It's like this: in six months I will be twenty-two, and I will have never really lived. A couple of days ago, I told my mother if I didn't dig out of the financial and emotional hole I am in, if I don't get my life together and get started moving forward toward my goals, if I don't get out of my head and into the world, I am probably going to end up killing myself. Literally killing myself, something I have never seriously considered before. It would be a waste of life if I can't get it together soon. I know if I don't do this now, I am likely never to, so I might as well end it. I don't want to end it. I don't want to die. But, I can't exactly call what I am doing living. I have been sad for a long time, standing still for even longer. I have to start moving forward. I have to start living. All my life I have been dreaming of doing crazy, incredible things because I have been trying to find my own will to live, my own survival mechanism, my own fight instead of flight instinct. This is the time. I start this now.
I am giving myself until my twenty-second birthday, July 15, 2010, to start living. I have a list of things I want to do before that time, as well as a couple of partners in crime to find adventures with. All of it is going to culminate in the ultimate show of self-confidence and self-belief. I am going to do a stand-up routine on my birthday. It is something that I have always secretly wanted to do, secretly hoped I'd be good at, but never truly believed I'd do. I never thought I would want to put myself out there like that. Stand-up is a scary, scary thing. You can kill, yes, but most likely you'll die. And the silence and the desire to please and the fear and flop sweat is just absolutely terrifying. Why would I ever want to do that to myself. Well, because I have always loved being on stage, and have always had a performer's heart, even if I've never had the confidence or the will. I think I could do it, I think I could be funny, and I think if I am ever going to survive in this world and find who I am, if I am ever going to accept myself and become something, I have to believe I can do it and try.
Eddie Izzard says you have to believe you can do it, see it happening, before it can. That, of course, is also what many books say on the matter of achieving anything, and I don't disagree. I have to believe in myself, I have to believe in something, because for so long I haven't bothered. I have to have faith, put some serious stock into myself, have some fucking hope, and believe.
Why Eddie Izzard, you say? He's my favorite comedian, and if I could aspire to be anything in my one performance, it would be to be like him. Of course, I am not trying to actually be like him, I think that's considered impersonation. I guess I would just like to do him proud.
So, for the next six months, I am going to do everything I can to live. I am going to write about it, I am going to share it with the world, I might even try to tell Eddie Izzard--although, I doubt he'll notice. (He seems busy, is all.)
I am going to capture the will to live, so that I might live, for once in my life.
This is my story of how I took Rock Bottom and turned it into something new. This is the uphill battle, the acceptance of who I am, and the refusal to quit now when I have so much I could do.
This is it.
Wish Me Luck