For the longest time I've struggled with myself to sit down and write something, ANYTHING, seriously. I started this blog years ago and since, I have failed to post even one article to it's feed. I wanted my first post to be profound, meaningful, and to propel my writing efforts toward something that would matter.
Looking back, I realize I expected to much and that I let my fear of inadequacy keep me from trying.
The excuses that I told myself were numerous. You don't know how to write. You haven't changed in any significant way. You're not published so no one will read it. Your vocabulary is rusty. You don't have a dedicated computer for writing. The list goes on and I'm afraid that the excuses that I substituted for reasoning don't improve. In fact, they get more ridiculous.
The saddest part? This mindset has governed everything in my entire life - my plans for a web comic, my art, my acting and voice acting, my comedy, my relationships, my career. Everything.
As I approach my 37th birthday and look at my life, I realize that it is time for change - real, lasting, substantial change. So I'm writing. Period. With no expectation and no direction. I'm just writing something.
Change. Real. Profound. Life altering. Change. But you can't talk about change until you talk about the status quo.
There was a time, for most of my youth actually, when I used to blame God, regardless of his label, for my misfortunes. I felt that God was out to get me - that I was his cosmic plaything and, much like a cat toys with a mouse, I was destined to be tortured until I no longer drew breath. That I was God's whipping boy and that he'd punish me for that ills of others.
God took my mother away. God sent the babysitter who used me as a sex toy. God made my father distant and unapproachable. God made me nearly fail high school. God was the reason that I was a poor athlete and struggled so much during my military career. God took ruined my relationships. God made me poor and financially destitute. God had done that because I was a mistake. I was wrong. I was bad. I was rotten.
I was worthless.
I was worthless.
For years I blamed God and shook my finger at the heavens in anger. It was easier - far easier than facing the fact that I was responsible for my own life and that I had been running from that responsibility.
For three decades I ran - ran from my responsibility because of the lies screamed at me in the deepest most vulnerable part of my heart by demons that wore my face. Spoke with my voice. I journeyed through my life with a gigantic chip on my shoulder begrudging everyone around me the happiness that they had because mine seemed so elusive. I wanted happiness. Deep down some small part of me even believed that I deserved it. But I kept living my life in a way that denied it.
Why you ask? Why wouldn't I? My belief system dictated the choices that I would make and why! And my actions based on those choices and the consequences only reinforced those beliefs. It was a terribly vicious cycle. One that I was desperate but hard pressed to break.
And yes, it can be said that I didn't possess the tools to break that cycle. The counselors and therapists that I have seen in my life has all said as much. But hadn't I also been told all my life how smart and talented I was? Wasn't someone like that capable of going out and learning new techniques and gaining new tools that COULD be used to break that cycle?
Yes of course. But that would have challenged my belief system. I'd have had to admit that I was WORTH breaking the cycle for and that all those years that I spent believing the lies that I told myself had been wasted and I wasn't ready to do that yet. I hadn't reached a point on the road that made me WANT to challenge those beliefs.
I can't tell you what it was that ultimately made me want to change - deviate from the status quo. Maybe it was getting hit by a car on my 30th birthday and coming face to face with my mortality in a way that I hadn't before. Maybe it was losing what, to me at the time, was the love of my life on my 33rd birthday because I still carried that chip on my shoulder. Maybe it was the fact that I was homeless by my 34th birthday and sleeping in my car until it's transmission exploded, literally, in a shower of metal beneath me and I began sleeping on a bench.
Maybe it was a combination of all of those things.
While I can't give you a singular moment that has led me to this point, what I can say for certain is this: I'm tired of living this way. I'm tired of being unhappy and I'm tired of surrendering my power to circumstance. It doesn't have the right to shape my life and I'm over shirking that responsibility.
The last couple of years I've made huge strides toward letting go of that debilitating system of lies that I've allowed to hold me back. I've taken action in my own life and as a result I've found myself in theater and comedy. I've reconnected with my estranged daughter and I've worked to improve my career and financial status as well as to clean my spiritual house of other unwanted baggage. I've even gotten my very own place, all to myself, for the first time in my life.
Don't get me wrong, It hasn't been easy. Changing my life has been one of the most difficult undertakings I've ever attempted. I face down old demons everyday. That little lying voice, the one driven by fear that spent years telling me that I was worthless, is still there and daily I have to gently remind it that it is wrong and list the proof that things are different than they were when it came into being until it quiets and I can get on with my day. The consequences of the choices I've made in the past still haunt me and dealing with them is often like shoveling garbage and sewage - a task that is both unpleasant and necessary.
But my life IS changing. And I'm the one responsible.
My point is this: a change for the better can come to even the most screwed up life. You simply have to make the choice. Dealing with that change will bring challenges and hardships. I don't deny that. But facing those challenges and hardships and passing those trials will be worth it.
~ D
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