Posts in category "Thoughts"

A Change In Writing

There’s so much to say, and not enough time to write. It’s obvi­ous that I haven’t been stick­ing to any kind of post­ing sched­ule late­ly. The ben­e­fit is that I don’t feel the pres­sure of hav­ing to write some­thing every day, the draw­back being the fact that things I want to get down are often lost. When I do get a chance to write, it’s like I’m per­pet­u­al­ly writ­ing about thoughts, feel­ings, and events that are a month old.

Perhaps anoth­er evo­lu­tion in the way I write.

I used to write my thoughts quite often. Things I had to fig­ure out or get off my chest. Now, it’s most­ly things that hap­pen in my dai­ly life, and some­thing ran­dom here and there. It’s like I’m mov­ing beyond my con­fused ado­les­cence into some sort of reflec­tive dotage.

The entries from the first year were writ­ten with so much more fre­quen­cy — rough­ly three times a day. Then that changed to once a day, then every oth­er day. A few times, I tried to write less fre­quent­ly, with­out a set sched­ule, but that nev­er real­ly worked. The writ­ing itch was always there. At one point I took a month-long hia­tus.

Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m try­ing to say.

The thing I par­tic­u­lar­ly miss are the entries writ­ten late at night. Spilling my soul out in words, with the music, the sky, and the emp­ty streets guid­ing me. As tired as I would be (I swear, some­times it was the exhaus­tion that brought it out in me), I always went to bed after feel­ing sat­is­fied.

Now, I’m not sure what this all is.

Deuteragonist

I’m the au pair with the jazz tapes, telling him to use Davis and Coltrane on the first date. The hero’s child­hood bud­dy, who dies in mor­tar fire dur­ing their ser­vice in the Second World War. The awk­ward friend who isn’t attrac­tive enough to play the lead. The sib­ling con­fi­dante, who con­tra­dicts the pro­tag­o­nist with cyn­i­cism, only to be proven wrong in a sat­is­fy­ing fit of glo­ry.

All my life, I dreamed of great­ness, of being the main char­ac­ter in some quixot­ic sto­ry.

But I’m slow­ly real­iz­ing that I’m only a deuter­ag­o­nist.

I wrote this entry about four or five months ago, but nev­er pub­lished it. I held off because I was­n’t sure if it would be true a week after I wrote it. Weeks turned into months, until the sud­den real­iza­tion that I don’t feel this way now.

I regret not pub­lish­ing it at the time. Even though it holds no rel­e­vance any­more, at the very least, it would have been a time stamp of how I felt in the moment. There are so many fleet­ing mem­o­ries and emo­tions that change here, part of my ephemer­al nature. But part of me thinks that it took this real­iza­tion to give me the strength to say it.

Maybe I’m start­ing to believe in myself.

Your Interest In My Love

I’ve always enjoyed read­ing about peo­ple who are in love, but most of all when that love is unre­quit­ed. Vivid pic­tures paint­ed in details about a saucy diastema, the observed rit­u­al of walk­ing by a cer­tain table every day to get a cup of water for paint, an unso­licit­ed brush against a hip. Stories about awk­ward­ness, weak­ness, burn­ing desire.

Perhaps it’s because I can relate to these expe­ri­ences, or because they make me feel like I’m less alone in my own clum­sy deal­ings with the oppo­site sex. Even though there are count­less sto­ries writ­ten about unre­quit­ed love, there aren’t enough. For the few of us who are “oppressed by the fig­ures of beau­ty”, as Leonard Cohen calls it, noth­ing makes us feel bet­ter. All we can do is silent­ly com­mis­er­ate with the words of those who share them­selves in this way.

When I look through my old entries, it seems like most of them are about love or a torch I car­ry in one way or anoth­er, and how this affects me.

And some­times I won­der if this is the rea­son why peo­ple come here to read my words.

Issues In Others

After going through ther­a­py, I’ve start­ed to rec­og­nize com­plex­es and issues in oth­er peo­ple.

Some put their hope in some­one, then hurt them. Some only fall in love with peo­ple they can’t have, and as soon as inter­est is rec­i­p­ro­cat­ed, they lose the attrac­tion. Strong signs of emo­tion­al depri­va­tion, stem­ming from trau­mat­ic rela­tion­ships. (Unfortunately, I’ve been the cause on more than one occa­sion, and it was my own issues that lead to this destruc­tive behav­iour where I did­n’t treat a heart as del­i­cate­ly as I should have.)

Most peo­ple aren’t aware of their issues, but I’m always baf­fled by the ones who are aware and still don’t do any­thing about it. They repeat­ed­ly make the same mis­takes over and over again.

I’ve always believed that self-improve­ment is the high­est form of liv­ing, and I’ve been able to work through my own bag­gage, so I refuse to accept those who don’t work through their own.

Life After Now

When you get to my age and most of your best years are behind you instead of ahead of you… it is a lit­tle eas­i­er to both appre­ci­ate what you have and to regret what you will nev­er have again.

—Michael on Randomness and Disconnection

In this cul­ture, we’re bred to believe that every step of our lives will affect the next one with dire con­se­quences. If you don’t choose the right class­es in grade 10, you’ll be stuck in some­thing you don’t like in grade 11, and end up scor­ing poor­ly. If you score poor­ly in grade 11, you’ll lim­it your options for grade 12. If you don’t have the right class­es in grade 12, you’ll have few­er uni­ver­si­ties from which to choose. So on and so on, until the C+ you got in his­to­ry class means you’ll be mow­ing lawns for the rest of your life.

Maybe this is why I always feel like it’s too late.

I wish I nev­er stopped learn­ing piano, so I could have anoth­er medi­um to express myself. I wish I grew up learn­ing Tai Chi, so it’d be more nat­ur­al to me. I wish I bought a house soon­er, so I could have cap­i­tal­ized on amor­ti­za­tion in the ris­ing hous­ing mar­ket. I wish I had start­ed con­tribut­ing to my RRSPs at a younger age, so I could retire at the age I want. I wish I paid more atten­tion in French class, so I could still use it as a lan­guage. I wish I had gone to ther­a­py ear­li­er, so I would­n’t have messed up the rela­tion­ships that mat­tered.

All these sit­u­a­tions where I feel like I’m too old and passed the point where I can achieve some­thing effi­cient­ly, or max­i­mize my gains.

But then I see how hap­py some peo­ple are, who are twice my age, and haven’t planned for retire­ment yet. Or some who still live in an apart­ment, with­out a house or car for equi­ty. Some are new­ly sin­gle at fifty, and dat­ing, and hap­pi­er than they’ve ever been (and here I am, think­ing that I’ll be sin­gle for the rest of my life because every­one my age is already mar­ried). Even Lloyd, who just obtained his doc­tor­ate last year at 36, told me that one’s skills can take them any­where, and that age is nev­er a mat­ter. I’m not sure if I believe that yet, but I’d sure like to.

It all makes me won­der: is it real­ly too late? Are my best years real­ly behind me?

Perhaps they’re not.