How long have I been writing this blog? Years, right? I remember a few Thanksgivings ago—making an entry then from a grocery store parking lot. Things are different now, but I’m still a vampire. The holidays bring on the usual triggers. I can see why folks make New Year Resolutions. After a while, if I’m paying attention to what I’m doing, I start to piss myself off.
I spend too much time on the internet (especially on my phone), and yet I can’t live without it. I don’t think the people I admire the most waste time like I do. The internet is always a way back into obsession for me, too—I can go and look up all my old victims. I can look up the ones that got away. I can look up their friends. It gets more and more pathetic as I go on.
I’m supposed to speak at the treatment center in a few months—to share my story of recovery so far. I feel like I have to make some changes because I don’t want to go up there and talk about how great recovery is while I know deeply I’m living a boring life. I’ve got to be doing more with the time I’ve got left, if I’m not going to be immortal anymore.
Today I picked up the guitar while Jedd took Fletch to the grocery store. And I decided I need to get over myself not being the best. I need to get over just being okay. If I’m on a permanent plateau with my skills, then that’s where I am. Why not write a song from here and just do my best without having to be somebody?
I also picked up my embroidery project I’ve had going for over a year. There isn’t a goal or an end in sight for it; it’s just there so I can see what needs to happen as I go. I find myself doing a lot of processing while I work. I think a lot about how using my hands is so much better than being on the internet to the extent that I have been.
What’s rad for some people isn’t going to be rad for me. What’s rad for me is doing some creative work while taking care of a 14 month old while also working part time while also being in recovery. I make the homemade muffins with carrots and zucchini, the homemade smoothie pouches, the eggs with spinach and cheese. We dance to Jerry Garcia Band with Fletch on rainy days, hoping the good music we know gets through to him. It’ll be cool to see one day what kind of music he likes on his own.
I stitch and I play guitar and I write—none of it for money. Do I wish I had what it took to make any of these things profitable? Right now, yes, but at the same time I’m just here to accept my plateau right now. Accept that I might not ever make money off of what brings me the most peace and fulfillment. Accept that I’m going to have to do these things in the background of my ordinary life, because I’m not exceptionally dedicated or smart or whatever combination of things I’d need to be in order for that to happen. I need to be realistic, not live in a fantasy world where I get to make money doing what I love while only some know my secret—that I used to hunt for human blood. How could I be so entitled to think the world or this life owed me anything, once I stopped hunting?
This isn’t to come across as beating myself up. I think it’s just that I need to get real with myself. This doesn’t mean quitting my creative pursuits that continually find their way back to the back burner time after time; this is to simply accept that where I’m at isn’t a successful place in terms of becoming a way to work. It means that I can create all I want, but it’s for my mental health and not my pride.