Sometimes there are things that happen and all I want to do is write a story about it. Maybe not directly write about the it, but write a story about the it. The words are always there, I hear them, swirling around my head, waiting for them to whip me into the direction I want to go. But it's my act of the follow-through; knowing that I want to say something about something and maybe that something is possibly something other people may want to know, too. And then I think they don't, so I sit in the little tornado of words in my head, waiting for the storm to clear; the sunshine.
There are words and phrases that stick with us: Call me Ishmael. Happy families are all alike... When in the course of human events it becomes necessary... But when it hits you, when the words you've been carrying really hit you, He rolls into your arms like Ozzie and Harriet, and you can't look back. Everything turns into narrative; one silly, long, grinning-like-an-idiot narrative. About life and how you live it. How you want to live it and why we do what we do. I'm not letting mine beat me up anymore-- Everything is ridiculous and nothing is okay. The hyperbole is lost and found again.
Something happened-- clicked-- recently: I've been happy for over seven months. Seven whole months of laughing, letting go, saying yes. Being. So all things limp together for the only possible. More words that aren't mine. I was limping, all things were limping. I can't go on. I'll go on. Even more words. I spent my thirtieth birthday locked in my bedroom; my heart pounding in my chest praying everything would just go away, wondering what the hell I did to get into this situation and how to make it better. Worse.
I made a change. A huge, life-changing change. I said, out loud, what I wanted and when I needed it, and everything stopped. I said six words and everything was different. It was like the carnival tilt-a-whirl just slowed to that halting, dizzying slow and I just stepped off, my inner ears still adjusting to the speed of still. And then I ran. I went to my best friend's house thousands of miles away, we drove through the desert, and landed at a beach in Mexico. And we talked and we laughed and we laughed and I didn't cry. There was no crying.
They say not to write when you're sentimental. Ha. Coming from a family of people who aren't, I think it'll be okay. How can you move forward without understanding the past? Or really realizing that you're writing like an excited 25-year old still grasping at the dreams of undergrad? G.I. Joe. Knowing is half the battle. Etc. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. More Other People's Words. Sensing a theme? It's all here and it's all now.
So, here we are. I'm happy. I've never laughed as much as I have in the past months. I've come to terms with my overly absent-minded and klutz of a self. Everything is ridiculous and nothing is okay. I'm turning 32 and I will never be locked inside anything ever again. I choose this life, right now. I choose the ridiculous. I choose. I choose other people's words, I'm not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn't take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing. I choose mine.
