The Midwest in January means you never know what’s coming next–though, in this case, the news from Chicago is telling me what’s coming is snow. Which is not a good thing for me, for tomorrow I’m suppose to be on the road tomorrow, traveling off to my Undisclosed Location, and I damn sure don’t want to do it with 6 inches of snow on the ground.
I’ve said in earlier posts that 2012 seems like a period of change for me. The next few weeks couldn’t be even more true. It seems like my writing is at a point where, suddenly, it’s a real, serious thing. I have one story that will see publication in a few months; my NaNo Novel is being edited and I’ll looking for a publisher, and I have just finished another story that I don’t know what I’m going to do; and I’m writing another. Busy, busy, busy.
Doubts remain, that is true: as I’ve also said, my mind is my own worst enemy. It keeps holding me back, as it has for many, many years. Part of that is due to being bi-polar; part of it is due to other issues in my life.
I had a discussion with a friend the other night, and we talked about my writing. And I had to comment that whenever I give my stuff to others to read, they always comment on how good it is, that they really enjoy my stories. And it’s not just one or two people I’ve very close to; it comes from people that I’ve only known, in some cases, for a few months.
My comment to him was, “If all these people are telling me I’m good, that I write decent stories, then I gotta start believing them.”
And the reality is who should I listen to? I do live by the statement, “Don’t believe your own hype,” and that’s always a good one. Never build yourself up to a point where you think you are bigger than you are. That’s deadly. And if you have a fragile ego, it will burn your ass at some point, because you’ll crash like a mother and it’s going to hurt very, very bad.
I have a close friend who used to post a lot of inspirational comments. Most of them were about love and relationships, but there is one that I saw that touched me. It was, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” It’s so true. I think about my last job, and it just pisses me off. I was with a company for 13 years, and during that time I did nothing. Really. Sure, I had my projects and some of them were really satisfying, but as a person I didn’t grow. The place was a paycheck and nothing more.
In the process of working there, I ran into a culture of “Just do it, be happy you have a job, shut up and don’t make waves with your negativity,” and all it did was drive me to the point where I finally had to tell someone that I was about to kill myself if the shit came up. Of course, at that point they freaked and told me to get help, never caring that all the years before that I was a wreck . . .
The point is, however, that I was comfortable there. Even when I was miserable about what I was doing, I was comfortable. Hate to say it, but I was dead–inside. There was nothing there.
I had no life.
Right now it’s not much better, but I feel like, for the first time, I’m on the edge of getting a life, of maybe living.
Maybe living as I should.
Because we all need that.
Next time, perhaps I’ll talk about the blond I saw in my dreams . . .
