White Blank Page

Holy christ, man. A wordpress blog entry form looks just like a blank piece of paper in a notebook, white and foreboding, like the noisy silence of the ringing in your ears. It’s oppressive.

It’s not like I haven’t been writing. Up until the last month, I’d been dutifully keeping a journal, sticking to the routine. And then the routine got blown the fuck up, even though it probably shouldn’t have. These things happen. It’s important, when your world goes sideways, to give yourself room to fall off the horse, then walk around and rub your metaphorical ass for a day or week or month before hopping back on.

Last year, or maybe the year before (‘m getting old and these things are starting to run together), one of my friends said, over and over again as the boulders of ill fortune piled up, “2015, We will overcome you.”

That’s 2017 for me. Well, for us, really. It all affects my wife and kid as much as it does me. Medical bills piled up. My fucking car is cursed. Yes, I said cursed, like Christine, only with an appetite for inconvenience and financial disaster rather than blood.

In the past year, the car’s list of ailments includes: turbo diverter valve failure, oil housing gasket failure, water pump, thermostat, oil pan gasket, valve cover gaskets, vacuum pump failure, a blown run-flat tire and, most recently, the clutch crapped out ($3,800). If you were to add all that up, it comes to a grand total of more than I paid for the fucking car 24 months ago.

I do not recommend anyone buy a Mini Cooper. Okay, sure, it’s hands down the most fun I’ve ever had driving a car. Not even close. But … the financial burden of fixing the thing is enough to bankrupt a family. I mean, it’s tallied up more than twice as much in repairs as its worth, as what’s left to pay it off. Mini Cooper: Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter.

What else? Oh yeah, had a blood clot in June. Three of them.

And then … AND THEN … I got laid off. Did the unemployment thing (which isn’t a thing, really, for as long as it takes them to pay you). Haven’t written much since that happened.

So yes, my habit got disrupted. It would be easy to feel shame for that, to plunge into the self-flagellation and negativity I’ve often turned to. Thing is, talking negatively to yourself, about yourself, gives you an excuse. It gives you an out. It gives you a “why bother” mentality.

Why bother.

I’ll tell you why bother. You are what you think you are. If you take precedence as truth, then how do you ever change, get better, evolve? It’s one thing to give yourself a mental pep-talk “come on, shithead, you can do this.” That serves a purpose. But saying things like, “I never stick with it” … that serves no purpose other than to allow you to wallow in your comfortable misery. It lets you be passive. It lets you not try, lets you quit before trying.

Not trying is not the same thing as failing. Failing in an effort is akin to the act of destruction necessary for creation.

Life is that blank page, oppressive in its nothingness. You can either let it crush you, or you can do what you really want. Either way, the choice becomes a habit, and habits are hard. Good ones are hard to keep, bad hard to keep away. Its how you deal with the setbacks that matters.

Doodle if you have to, but fill it with something until you figure out what’s really supposed to go there.

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Hey, look. The page isn’t blank anymore.

More later.

Also, apologies for all the cliches and shitty metaphors. heh.