I found myself reading old stories I wrote maybe two decades ago. Maybe longer. In those rich words I discovered that I’ve spent the last two decades trying to get back there–to the point where I was ready to take off and be a better writer.
I honestly don’t know what happened. Fatherhood? Marriage? Being with my first wife fundamentally shifted who I was as a human being. I cannot call it abuse, persay. I can call it neglect, scripting, manipulation–on my part and hers. No matter the label slapped on the experience, I spent the better part of two decades being someone else. I wasn’t authentically me and the words echo that. I can look at a story from that long ago and trace the outline of what I am writing now–what I am striving to create. I am only now getting back to where I was, which means I am only now starting to have what it takes to move forward.
Back then, back before the blog and in the very early days I kept leaning on the now-ancient phrase “I finally got my shit together” hoping it were true. It wasn’t then. Isn’t entirely true now, but I am close. Probably closer than I’ve been since I left college. No coincidence that I’m back in the routines of being a student and a teacher–learning from both sides of the divide.
All of this is to say that I haven’t been the best version of myself in a long time, and really did not understand what that person–that writer–could look like. I’m ready to find out.