the history’s in question but there’s an end in sight
I’ve made these weird allusions to the way things have changed recently even just with an answer–and all of these things, they point to a conclusion, for once.
I’ve tried writing this shit down…and I’ve felt ill-prepared in many ways to go back there to the points of terror, of uncertainty–of even the time I tried to kill myself before a big surgery in a kind of gruesome way. I’ve been talking about writing this memoir of mine for literally years–but it never felt quite right to do–to try and tackle. I convinced myself for a while it was because I couldn’t remember it all, which IS true in many respects–a lot of the shit I tried to wash away–the most terrible feelings I’ve washed over about this stuff and I talk about it pretty frankly because–when you have sat in the shit as LONG as I have, it’s a matter of perspective. And you really stop giving a shit about appearing a certain way because–well, world, fuck you, you have no idea. And even lately knowing some people do–we all take things differently. My discovery of illness is a bit different than most because mine is intertwined around an adoption and a search for birth parents which really culminated a few months before 9/11.
Man if I could write the truth about what my life has actually been–you might think I am pretty fucking interesting. The full truth I might not be able to afford to ever really tell because the nature of our media and what it does—no no. I am not a moron. There will always be a mystery or two worth discovering, I figure, for those close enough to get to know. Everyone has to have even an open secret or two.
But I picked a book up on memoir writing and it was going into the work it is to bring yourself back to a place and try to figure a way to paint it out to your reader in a way that will be painful, it suggests. I suppose I never really thought of it in any kind of removing any of my layers because I have always felt like I am pretty out there, or here, as it were. I say what I think more often than anyone is ever comfortable reading…or hearing as it were. If I can say it here, I will say it out loud because–well–think of it like this. I grew up the quiet meek brown-haired zit faced flat chested little thing–who literally got what was it–10 months of freedom and I was laid down by my own desire to get off–I was laid down by my laying down.
And you know what…part of me has been afraid to tackle the thing–the memoir because–I told you. I feel when I do it, it will be my thing and the next minute I will be done…so to delay it delays my death in some weird fucked up world my head lives in. But I am doing it. And if I die the next day–well at least I fucking did it. I am not sure what it will be–this thing started in 1995 and I never never let it stop me from doing what I wanted. In fact—as an adult it has fucked me simply because of the financial destruction major illness can rain on any stable financial future is real. But when I was young, in my 20’s? Well I wanted to move to NYC and I waited not even 3 years after my insides shredded to leave. And yeah…I had a whole bunch in NYC and maybe if I lived on a horse farm…or maybe close to the beach now it would be better. The altitude I am at is clearly not making life easier…
But. I am finally ready because I have the answer. I mean, I have a fucking reason. Err…not the larger answer to this life we lead–but the answer to what the hell the problem was–the conclusion that I have now has allowed me to wrap it in a bow and present finally. It’s funny–a few years ago I was talking to a writer who implied I was too young to write a memoir and I kinda felt that way–I mean, the life I had was not the one most people did. Most went to college and got that thing, or had kids or got married and did the house thing–and for years I felt pissed that shit skipped me. I never got the college comraderie because my friends were adults in college by the time I met them…whereas everyone else somehow turned, er matured in college–I turned myself into one in NYC.
I think I can do it…and especially now before the mega stroke takes me out…while the answer to the question is still somewhat pretty…it’s time.
