The Concept Is Also The Problem

So sometimes I swell up inside with feelings and observations and thoughts that ransom-demand I express them creatively. If I can't, if I don't know how to process and understand them through an art form, I become angry, negative, listless and even sort of depressed.

I need to expel what's in my head and/or heart, and I need the by-product to mean something. I need it to make sense.

For example, I've had an idea for a new blog format I've been meaning to try for years. I finally did a test pass in NYC at the end of 2008, and having just recently seen some of the early results, I feel like this might finally be the macguffin I've been looking for. A synergy of interests that converge my talents toward a smart target. It's an idea that allows me to create something new, something honest and relatable that other people can connect with, enjoy and maybe even feel inspired by.

Unfortunately, I'm already experiencing doubt and cold feet. If I want to talk about the things going on in my life and in my head, in a visual form no less, it's going to require me to pull vivid details from my personal life and the people in it.

Now, I've been doing as much in MySpace blogs for a couple years now, but this is different. There will be visuals, I'll be drawing avatars, trying to capture likenesses. Doesn't matter if I leave the names out or change them altogether, my depictions of certain events could get back to people and it could freak them out. Shit, it's freaking me out just thinking of putting my history onto the goddamn internet.

There's a complete lack of control once it's released.

So why do it? Why bother?

I suppose the answer is that for the past few years that I've been writing and blogging online, there has seemed to be an overwhelming amount of interest and support from those who have been kind enough to respond, comment or encourage. I wrote a goddamn advice column for christ's sake. People put my words together and react, and luckily, it's a positive reaction.

But I've tried not to get into specifics too much. I used to think I'd turn some of the most devastating yet hilarious moments of my life into works of art that people could appreciate, that some of my worst adventures would become my best stories.

But a couple of years ago, I found I'd appeared in someone's work: a hack job smear campaign short film created by a spiteful ex-girlfriend.

And in that blinding instant, I realized what it's like to be turned from an intimate companion to a cheap anecdote.

From that moment on, I felt like every song ever written about someone you loved was a bullshit play for sympathy from needy artists. That we're all full of shit. That perspective is an illusion and everyone's trying to look good instead of being honest.

And thinking of myself as an honest man, that knowledge sort of damaged my ideals about what's appropriate to share, what one can cull from the clay of life to sculpt a vision.

Maybe I'm rambling here. I'm just saying that I try my best to respect privacy, to protect the secrets and insecurities of others. I might be an agnostic, but I still believe in treating others as you wish to be treated, as the good (crazy) book says.

So what do I do? I feel like I can't move forward with my vision for this project until I deal with this issue. I can't concentrate on or execute this undertaking if I'm struggling in the dark with how honest to be.

I don't enjoy hurting anyone, unless they're an evil fuck and truly deserve it. That's a sweet sensation of righteousness.

But I'm not sure how to fly this thing. Not yet.

The butler did it! (7 years ago)

I'm a messy person, so when I need to find something in particular, it usually involves rummaging through everything else. This also means sporadic reunions with long lost artifacts that flash me back to times I've mostly forgotten or washed away.

Case in point: an artifact unearthed from my romantic past. Evidence of a relationship that was defining to experience and devastating to end. I'll always remember the first time love came right back at me. I'd been waiting for what seemed like six consecutive lifetimes, and by the time I turned twenty, it was my turn.

It was just as good as the fucking movies.

So tonight I found the journal that she left me after we broke up so many years ago. Inside are less than a dozen entries she wrote while we were together. Looking over them again, I came to a big time realization -- I pushed her away.

The words in the journal were of undying adoration, pledging to stay by my side forever, but fearing the day I'd pull away and stop seeing her as some divine creature of serendipity. She knew I'd built her up, her fragile self-esteem didn't think she'd survive the drop if and when it happened.

And it did. In stages. And now I can articulate why. I used to think we just fell out of love -- I was wrong.

What happened was, my honesty, my goddamn brutal, indignant honesty had to make subtext context: I didn't see us working out in the end. I saw writing on the wall. We weren't meant to last forever. We'd enjoy our time together in college, but beyond that, I knew life had other plans in store for the both of us.

And of course, when she heard that poison, she started to pull out. She pulled until we were both at equal distance. Then we both agreed to break it off.

Which was fine until I lost my mind over it. But it was too late. I'd chosen my path and couldn't stray. Neither could she. She gravitated elsewhere. She moved on to someone else.

And she married him.

And why, you ask? Why did I do this? Why did I give up on the first true love I ever had reciprocated? Why have I repeated this pattern with every relationship or flame since?

Because my parents conceived me with special, superhuman abilities, and one of them is a Sensory Perception to NEVER END UP WITH THE WRONG PERSON.

I'm so terrified of making the biggest mistake of my lifetime by shacking up with the wrong woman, it's as if I receive broadcast signals from the future warning me to get the hell out when I sense things aren't meant to be.

And they never are, really. There's always something. They're never the girl you see yourself spending the rest of our life with.

And even so, who the hell is that girl, anyways? What does she look like? What does she have that all of the others don't?

I don't know. I know we weren't meant for each other. Maybe it's me, the me from now, feeling justified, sending those emotions back to a terrified and insecure 21 year old kid that he'll live and that he made the right call to hold out for the right one.

I'm saying all of this because I met someone recently who really fucking scared me. I've spent a few years being the most aloof motherfucker in the room, but the moment someone perforates your atmosphere and exposes you to a whole new spectrum of emotions and energies, well -- it's exciting but exceedingly terrifying.

I was scared about the future. I didn't want my powers to kick in. I just wanted this to work.

I turned right back into that scared, twenty-year old kid.

And maybe that's who I'll always be, the high-energy, desperate to please comedian who freaks out the moment things become real. Real feelings. Real fears.

When I got scared recently, I ran away at the first sign of trouble, of vulnerability, I suppose. Because the fear of falling for someone works both ways: you're terrified it might not work out, but the fear is fueling your heart into overdrive and you're reaching record speeds. Your thoughts, your blood, it all charges the same battery. It possesses you.

It's seven years later. I still don't want to settle for the wrong person. I'm still looking for the right one. And I'm still entitled to freak out and run if things get weird. Cash out. Take myself off the shelf.

Sometimes we're not ready to deal.

But I have to believe I'll be ready to go all in if it feels like love. Need to believe I can get there, that I can overcome all those wonderful abilities my folks gave me, the ability to not trust, to not let my guard down, to always have an exit strategy.

I'm looking forward to facing the fear again, to come out swinging, to skip a beat and notice that the ticker still works.

I don't know when that's gonna happen. I don't know what's around the corner.

I'm just doing my goddamn best to grow up.

Use Somebody

Dear East Coast West Coast,

This blog is a joke. Looking at how infrequently it's used for absolutely anything by anybody downright pisses me off.

We seriously need to revise the purpose of this motherfucker or just stop kidding ourselves and delete the goddamn thing.

In other news: I'm unhappy. Go sit on a nail.

regards,
Drew