Every time I pick myself back up on my feet this year someone else tackles me. They don't even wait for the snap to begin another dogpile. I just needed time to heal. I was borderline manic at the beginning of this month because a single punch was finally pulled. I was too caught up in missing the right hook that I didn't see the uppercut coming. Then the stressors of this month came out with the lead pipes to keep me on the concrete. People took all my goodwill and ran but I would have given it to them anyways. I have emotional maturity. I'm an adult; I'm not an animal. I can set my self-interest aside and recognize my wants aren't always what's right. I didn't have to be robbed and abandoned. That may sound like a victim complex and maybe it is but I would never treat a human being how I have been.

I tried to overcompensate with accomplishments. I was treated so worthlessly I thought if I could do things I didn't think possible of myself then I could be worth something. I couldn't prove it to myself let alone anyone else. It's desperate and sad. "Look, Dad! Are you proud of me?" I threw myself head first into writing this book, going harder than I ever have before, and didn't leave myself with the capacity for another calamity. I was naive enough to think the clouds had parted and life could go back to its boring self.  I thought I was finally being given the peace of mind to make such a commitment. Again, I was wrong.

So, for once this year, I'm just going to take the L with some semblance of grace. There's no time for a comeback this season. I've been shut out. I've got crutches under each arm; I don't even have a best foot to put forward anymore. I've been disfigured to the point where I'm no longer presentable. I'm going to accept that if I'm going to finish the marathon of this book, I need to be patient with myself. I need to let the fractures heal. I need to get the heck off the field and train harder than I ever have before so that next season I'll be ready. Right now, though, I need to accept that there's no gap for me to pass through. I'm not being given the opportunity to succeed. I'm not being given the opportunity to be happy or carefree. I've been trying to get off the bench all year but they simply won't have me on the field. (There are, like, 10 mixed football metaphors in this rant. Sorry.) After all the damage I've accumulated, I'm now walking around like I've been concussed. The only opportunity I'm being given is to get hurt even more. I'm not wanted here. I'm not needed. I need rest and recovery and I can get back to work when the time is right. 

​It's been a difficult year. Things have been bad for a long time and they never got an easier. It was the first time I ever felt life wasn't worth it. I have been on a journey to find a life worth living but so far I've only made wrong turns into dead ends. I've been grasping at straws to make sense of everything. "Oh, I worked on this project, so, it was all worth it!" "I had to go through that to be here." Every attempt has resulted in failure. It is frankly desperate and pathetic. I can't even take an L with grace. Hope dried up a long time ago and any bit I'm drip-fed sends me manic. Does someone like that even deserve good news? 

But I'm training myself to be grateful for the lessons learned the hard way. The rational side of my mind says that's masochistic. The student of Joseph Campbell in me says this is all a test I need to pass. I'm trying to find meaning in the suffering. I'm trying to use the pressure to strengthen myself. I just have to keep pushing forward in the faith that someday I will be thankful for all of this, that someone else will be thankful for me. Right now that doesn't seem likely but I'm going to keep doing my best and work to forgive my failures. 

"Of This World" in Funeral Gallery was originally titled "Gratitude." I cut most of the plot in favor of an ending more appropriate for the collection. (Brendan driving towards an unknown future with a ghost of his past riding shotgun.) It originally was to end with him finding purpose in helping others and enriching the lives of those around him in his new environment. 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d3k7lBdMXQY9b2MnVwXR-1WLbJn2yao1bMdE2qtDZEE/edit

If you read this, or anything I've written, I am grateful for you. If you've already given up on me, I don't blame you and I am doing my best to prove you wrong.

"yes I said yes I will Yes"
-the final lines of James Joyce's Ulysses​

I acknowledge and am aware of the fact that all of the self-improvement and the journey I have set out on while writing this novel is a massive cope. (What's the deal with that? Is it performance art? What do all these radical changes have to do with writing a fiction book? Good art should be transformative. If I want to write a book with the aspiration of changing readers' lives, I have to let the book change my own life. The book is my life now.) Behind all the accomplishments is tremendous sadness and fear. Tonight has been one of those nights in which the doubt and reality has sunken in. I appreciate nights like tonight. The most hopeless nights are the most important. Doing your best while feeling your lowest is to walk in faith. I'm thankful for the doubt and fears of the future, now. They remind me of what's at stake if I make the wrong choices in life. If I sit back and wait for everything I've ever wanted to fall into my lap, my worst nightmares will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. And in many ways, I'm already living out my own personal Hell, so, my misfortune has blessed me with newfound fearlessness. 

Every step towards an uncertain future hurts. I have to make peace with the pain. My trauma is a part of me. I accept my rejection. I'm thankful for my losses. I can collaborate with my struggle. It is a part of my story and I need to own it. You shouldn't be resentful toward challenges. Life has given me no choice but to strive for greatness. I'll either be a complete success or a total failure. I can't afford to settle. Mediocrity was never an option. I can make an origin story out of my regretful past. I need to look at existence with all the baggage and difficulties and still say yes to life, enthusiastically. Not only that but I need to be thankful for all the trouble because it will make me stronger. 2023 was resistance training.* I can be a better provider for those in my life who is more patient, more generous, more understanding, more kind. I can make sure I never make anyone else ever feel like I had to in order to get here. 

I know all this seems wholly self-involved and narcissistic but I'm not doing it for me. I don't want to live for myself. I want to enrich the lives of others. I wasn't put on Earth to age alone in my bedroom. I owe the world the best version of myself. I need to show the people who stuck around through my rough patch this year that I was worth the investment. The people in my life deserve the best of me, not excuses. I hope this motivates other people, to see me publicly eat dirt all year and then pick myself back up from it. I'm not special. 

​The world deserves the book that I'm writing. I had been slowly whittling away at it the last five years when I had a Field of Dreams moment. God, or fate, my ego (whichever you prefer) was, like, "You haved to write this book. You need t make these changes in order to get what you want out of life." And I thought, "OK." 

*I wrote this line that doesn't fit the vibe of this post but I'm too indulgent not to include it somewhere: Fourth quarter of the year and I'm trying to score. (That's a three-way pun. That was a normal pun. Hit 'em with a right hook, then an uppercut.)

Ugh, I'm sorry. I'm stupid and repeat the same mistakes and repeat the same mistakes. I've been doing a creative experiment in preparation for the football book I'm organizing and wanted to see if someone can at once be both their best and their worst selves. I hadn't drank alone since August (once on the anniversary of my friend's passing but I think calling that drinking alone is a matter of perspective) as a rule and gave myself one week at the end of October, after realizing my best self, to put myself back to my worst. I wanted to do it just to show myself I could bounce back and as a reminder that I prefer a healthier lifestyle. And I did. It was fun but I prefer running and reading to drinking and gaming. I actually prefer studying and writing my book. That can be fun every now and again but it got old years ago. I just think drinking should be for celebration and alone time should be spent bettering oneself. I have too much I wanna do to waste my nights listening to hyperpop and replaying platformers. 

I always say that art is like alchemy, you turn shit into gold. You can make a negative experience into something beautiful. I felt like if I wanted my "Runaway" I needed my VMAs moment. I needed to feel intense shame and embarrassment and carry that weight while working on this book. So, I put myself through pretty intense what I would consider "emotional torture," just getting in the ring with my worst self every night, confronting every insecurity and regret I've collected thus far in life. I told myself the last week in October that it would be the last time I would ever let those feelings hold me back and after that week was up, I could never use them as an excuse again.
​I had a rule to drunk post as much as possible. Be obnoxious, say things I'll wake up to regret. I'm writing about high conflict, aggressive people, so, I wanted to start fights. I felt like in order to write about such themes I myself needed to be a controversial figure. I asked to be "cancelled" (Nobody knows or cares about me. What would they cancel? lol.) and threw a lot of shade. My approach was that of the only person in the room with nothing to lose because they already took everything I cared about away from me. I do feel that way but feel that energy can be channeled in a healthy direction. I needed all my worst nightmares to come true in order to become fearless. I told myself and others it was performance art and that is true but it's also self-destructive. The tortured artist bit only works if you're talented. I can embarrass myself well enough without trying. I have enough guilt and shame for a lifetime as it is. People aren't an audience; they're people. I proved my point: I'm capable of accomplishing things both greater and worse than I thought possible and it's my responsibility to make the right choice. I put my worst foot forward and tripped and fell--twice in two weeks, once while black out drunk and the other time while jogging. I can make people laugh and I can make them worry. 

But I don't want to cause concern. I want to be someone who relieves stress, not provokes it. I want to do my best all the time. My goal was to inflict a lot of shame upon myself so I could better relate to the characters in my book and I certainly did that. I gave myself one week and then another day (due to celebrating getting great news) to see what damage I could cause and it was more than enough for me. Now I get to take that all that shit and try to make something of it. 

I'm posting this now, on 11/04/2023, but will refrain from sharing it with anyone until at least a week from now, once I've proven I stayed true to all this. If I don't, please, cancel me.
EDIT: I did update this with an additional sentence or two.