"Just write," they all say. "Don't wait for inspiration." "Write what you know." And yet I find myself staring at the computer screen, that cursor just flashing, constant, unwavering; at times taunting, at times pleading with me to write something, write something, write something. And still, nothing. So, "write what you know" becomes writing about this, this moment of my life, this crossroads, this mid-life crisis.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!" Thoreau admonishes. "Live the life you've imagined." That's great, and it looks fabulous embroidered on a pillow in the guestroom or on a motivational poster on the wall of the personnel department at the Holiday Inn Express. But what Thoreau fails to mention is that going confidently in the direction of your dreams can also mean going confidently in the direction of financial catastrophe and ruin. It can also mean being told by People Who Matter, that is, the people with the money, that your work is not good, or maybe that it's good but not good enough. It's great to espouse the Power of Positive Thinking and all that, this sort of blissful Zen attitude that things will eventually work out the way they were meant to be. That is, until you're the 52 year-old guy who just woke up with no job after quitting a steady paycheck, no actual plan to obtain an income of some kind, no college degree, and a crazy pipe dream to actually make money doing something you actually love doing.
It's sort of the same feeling I get from that cursor just flashing, blinking away, waiting to be told where we go next.
What brought me here? Well, a lot of things, for sure. To begin with, one of my greatest personal weaknesses has always been a lack of direction. I never really knew what I wanted to do with my life. My attitude was that I just wanted to live it and not worry about it, and while this may seem to some to be an almost heroic, Auntie Mame-type of approach to life, it has nevertheless brought me to this. Late middle-age, working for years in a job at which I was fairly proficient, but which had gone from being merely mind-numbing and occasionally unpleasant to being actually miserable and detrimental to my spiritual and physical well-being. I try to be a nice person, even at work, but by the end of the day I could be a short-tempered, snarling Hydra who snapped at little old ladies needing refills on their heart medicine. I would go home so stressed out and messed up that I couldn't even communicate with my husband, nothing beyond a few grunts and "uh-huh's" as I sat curled up in a semi-fetal position, rocking slightly and watching "Jeopardy!" without even shouting out the answers. In the morning before work, I would be filled with dread, actual Dread, as if I were about to be marched off to war or a condo association meeting. Some mornings it was so bad that I'd make myself sick.
This is where the Auntie Mame approach had gotten me. "Life is a banquet!" she would say, "and most poor suckers are starving to death!" as she jet-setted off to Tibet or Singapore. The thing is, Mame had a fabulous Beekman Place apartment and at least one dead rich husband. I have neither.
So, in order to preserve my own sanity, I had to give up the job, also known as "the income" and "the insurance."
It's different, though, after you've survived the two weeks, and your last day, as if you're just heading off for a nice vacation. After people have told you congratulations and have patted you on the back, shaken your hand as if you're retiring, you wake up that first morning and realize that you're staring into a sort of abyss. And, for me anyway, the first thought was, "Holy shit this is the rest of my life what the fuck have I done."
The second and third thoughts went pretty much the same way.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams," Thoreau said. Sometimes, though, it's not that easy to tell exactly which direction that is. Dreams are more nebulous, more like a soft glow on the horizon than a bright beacon. I can face my dreams, I can let that soft glow hit me in the face and warm my skin, but I find myself wondering where, how, to start walking.
One thing I know is that I must write. Even now, the world's oldest fledgling as it fumbles its way out of the nest into thin air. I find myself consumed with my own story, so that is what I will write.
Just keep the words flowing. Eventually the story will unfold. That's my plan.
Hell of a plan, huh?
This is where the Auntie Mame approach had gotten me. "Life is a banquet!" she would say, "and most poor suckers are starving to death!" as she jet-setted off to Tibet or Singapore. The thing is, Mame had a fabulous Beekman Place apartment and at least one dead rich husband. I have neither.
So, in order to preserve my own sanity, I had to give up the job, also known as "the income" and "the insurance."
It's different, though, after you've survived the two weeks, and your last day, as if you're just heading off for a nice vacation. After people have told you congratulations and have patted you on the back, shaken your hand as if you're retiring, you wake up that first morning and realize that you're staring into a sort of abyss. And, for me anyway, the first thought was, "Holy shit this is the rest of my life what the fuck have I done."
The second and third thoughts went pretty much the same way.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams," Thoreau said. Sometimes, though, it's not that easy to tell exactly which direction that is. Dreams are more nebulous, more like a soft glow on the horizon than a bright beacon. I can face my dreams, I can let that soft glow hit me in the face and warm my skin, but I find myself wondering where, how, to start walking.
One thing I know is that I must write. Even now, the world's oldest fledgling as it fumbles its way out of the nest into thin air. I find myself consumed with my own story, so that is what I will write.
Just keep the words flowing. Eventually the story will unfold. That's my plan.
Hell of a plan, huh?
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