I have been writing for over 30 years.
Actively, I’ve been writing online since 2006, writing books since 2001, and writing music since 1987. For a multitude of reasons, I have published less than one-half of one percent of my work.
Learning about unconscious control and obsessive internal drive gives me a new view of the world. Specifically, understanding my true self, the identity behind the person I had become, has been simultaneously rewarding and terrifying. Working out the kinks of authentic living in a culture steeped in ‘oughts’ and ‘musts’ has been more than challenging. Being very transparent, I considered taking my life during that season, numerous times. Pain is one thing, pain born from being a fraud is another.
At least that is the way I saw things.
Early memories of childhood still resound in my mind’s eye. I can close my eyes and experience the sounds of the phone, the dishwasher, and the vacuum cleaner, smelling the aroma of dinner-time meals, and the fresh scent of finished laundry. I don’t just remember the echoes of the addition, whose walls at one time were exterior brick, and how my footsteps rang between them and off the terrazzo floor, I’m walking, sneaking, and running on them presently.
I can feel the swing of my feet and the inertia of my left arm as I spin in my socks around the corner toward my grandparent’s room, how the room, well insulated, erased the echos of the corridor much like noise-canceling earbuds. I can feel the safety of that place and what it represented as a haven, where not only the noise of the hallway ceased, but the noise of my fears.
The light at my other grandmother’s home when exploring rooms long closed, used for storing memories of times before, shines in my eyes. I can feel the heat coming through the closed draperies as I draw them, seeing the dust dancing like fairies in the beams of sunlight. I feel the hand-knotted threads on the homemade comforter as I lay on my back starting at the ceiling combing through stacks of old pictures filled with faces I do not know.
These memories are not what I have seen, for a man like me, these are living present moments - sensing the wonder, having the same thoughts, continuing the conversation in my mind as I inquire of each breath, each experience, each feeling.
All this is right here with me as I type on my silver-laden Macbook Pro as its heat burns my legs. I remember every conversation in my head about every detail of this life. Personifying the dust, the bedspread being a landscape, a desert, a plane, a war zone - the halls and their echoing rants an inter-stellar channel transporting me into worlds unknown.
I have much in my mind and when I stop and stare into the world around me, I can be there. Anyplace, anytime. And so can my emotions.
I feel awe, fear, hope, love, curiosity, and anger.
Sometimes I can still feel alone. (I’ll share a journal entry next week on this)
I forgot these small places in my mind and heart for a long time. Yet, they had not untethered from me. As I traversed the plains of this current life, the vast topography of my childhood still mapped a way forward, sometimes to a place of despair, being carried into a new world without my knowledge. And, as is for many, we often create a persona that fits the casting we’ve been taught. A script that we’ve never seen except in the subtle conversations of our soul that don’t speak loudly enough to be heard.
But our mind hears all.
And it remembers.
Here I could insert an entire library of ideas and epiphanies and one day I may. I would love to travel the world and share my stories in front of others, showing the richness of my life and how any ‘nobody’ could have a lot to give to everybody.
Until that time, if it ever comes, I am sharing from a place of true and deep vulnerability. From this rich cavern, I believe, is the essence of shared humanity. I hope that my honesty will encourage others to find transformative freedom sooner and embrace a hope-filled purpose that goes beyond this world.
I’ve always heard that we should “reach for the stars” and that we would gain a lot if we fell short. Yet, that sentiment could be flawed. Reaching for the stars could also mean you’re being held up. (Hands in the air) Joking aside, while I am being more open, I still have to be wise. So, I am reworking some of my harsher ideas, reframing my language, and redacting a bit of the darkness.
Why? Not because I am ashamed. Shame has gone, life is here. No, because I want to be prudent and wise. Not everyone is ready for all of me, but in time, in certain contexts, and with certain people, I am being completely raw. If I cannot be true, then I do not want to be.
Much has brought me to this place. My life has been a jungle of adventure and pain with gladness and hope and everything else in between. While I first thought I needed to erase some of the ‘molded’ parts of me, I realize no matter the reason for their existence, they are me now, and I can let go of the deepest part of my acting career, the outcomes of those things are authentic. This reality has given way to hope and drowned all manner of regret.
So, for whatever it’s worth, I’m launching my cause. Nothing new, just more focused with a deeper sense of self, identity, worth, power, and most of all, peace.
I wrote a poem in an instant about a year ago and from there, I have created four frameworks that guide my world without boundaries and fear. It’s time I share my journey so that others can live as I do.
Thanks for listening… see you soon.
“When my thoughts come to the page they can easily cause me to land abruptly, shaking violently in descent as through turbulence. The crash site is often cleaned up long before the launch codes are sent via publishing. And you, my reader, get a watered-down version of what I really want to say.”