Haunted

I am pissed off at this blinking cursor on the blank page.  While I do feel a need to write something, anything; all that is going through my head is how difficult and frustrating that is for me.  Yet, that seems to be all I ever write about and this has me exhausted and annoyed.  Therefore, I hate that this is what I am doing now and I wish to apologize up front to the few people that for whatever reason feel obligated to read my ranting.

I like to believe there is a common misconception that I am the epitome of the typical male or at least an average approximation.  I am not entirely sure what that even entails; though mostly, I refer to male machismo.  It is hard to say what my friends really think; I remember watching a movie once and I could not convince anyone, after it was over, that I did not fall asleep.  The movie was Message in a Bottle, if memory serves me correctly, I did watch the entire flick.  I did not think it was great, but it was decent.  The reason, I believe, that I was accused of snoozing was my horrific slouching posture.  By the end of the movie I believe my back had made it to the seat of the auditorium chair and my head was resting on the seat back.  This, however, can all be “explained” by my slouching before the movie began, then as the movie started I did not want to sit up and disrupt anyone’s view behind me and I also did not want to make a ton of noise in so doing.  I could also explain it by pointing out that I am indeed crazy and there really is no good explanation for some of my strange behavior.

However, there is something that I have done at the movies; probably not what you are thinking.  Of course I do not believe anyone can say they have never cried at a movie.  Although, I could likely say my emotions are on par with the average female, therefore I actually do cry at movies quite regularly.  I do not hate on crying, trust me; sometimes it can be refreshing.  However, I have also done a bit of crying over my writing deficiencies and that is just bothersome.  It seems like a stupid reason to cry in my opinion.

Sometimes I wonder when these issues started.  I like to blame myself for quickly declining my high school teacher when he wanted me to go to a summer writing camp.  He wanted me to go, as far as I know, because he saw some flashes of brilliance in my work (I turned in a good poem and he mentioned this camp to me, personally, just afterwards).  The problem with the camp was that it was $1000 and I knew my family could not afford that.  This is only a stretch of my imagination however, as my troubles started before this and though the poem may have been good I recall taking forever to hammer it out and it was only eight lines.  Long before that, in sixth or seventh grade I had to write a portfolio and I was placed in “ALC” indefinitely when mine was not completed and it was believed or expected that it should have been.  I was required to work on my portfolio entries every day, all day; foregoing normal class sessions, until I was able to complete the (expletive) thing.

I still wish, sometimes, to convince myself that my experiences are normal and everyone else understands what I go through; however, deep down I do not think I truly believe that.  That is why I come back to the same idea for the thousandth time not satisfied that I ever fully shared the feeling within me, embarrassed and frustrated that I even feel that way.  If I could lie to myself I would call it laziness or a lack of passion, but at the same time I oft ponder could this whole problem be imagined?

At this point as a reader, one cannot know that I got tired and went to bed the day I started writing this.  Now it is two days later and I am just now getting in bed when I should have been asleep at least two hours ago.  It is not like I forgot about it, at best I pushed it to the back of my mind; but it took every opportunity available to remind me it was here.  A persistent nagging that I needed to do this, finish what I started.  It is all very overwhelming; giving life to something that has no end and offers no closure.  I will never be content though and that may be what is most discouraging.  Still I am as lost as ever and that thing is still there hanging over me.