Someplace else.

Vic and I were talking last week, and, once again, we found ourselves at this weird little impasse that we talk about from time to time. When we're confused or disappointed about how our lives are going, one of the two of us will suggest moving away.

Now, I know that it's not easy like that. I know that you're you no matter how far you try to get away from where you're from, that you need to work through your problems and solve them.

Vic was the one to suggest it this time, though. She said that, if we were together in another state, we could find the sense of 'home' with each other, while at the same time we could tackle a whole new set of the same old problems in a different location.

I used to want to do that. I used to want to escape. Everybody does, I know.

I actually figured, once I moved to my new apartment and actually felt that I liked it, actually felt like I'd found someplace where I was comfortable, that I'd succeeded because I no longer wanted to escape. I don't want to escape so much anymore.

I'm not unhappy about where I am, though I am growing concerned with who I am.

It's like this. I wonder if I'm ever going to write a convincing fictional character if I'm indeed meant to write or, better, write fiction. I want to write a character who can convince me that he's real or believeable. I want to know what it's like to finish a book, a real one.

I want to see if I can get it published, yet, at the same time, I don't want to try because I don't want to face the inevitable mountain of rejection that would likely come with possible acceptance. Unfulfilled potential, in the short run, is easier to live with the absolute failure. But, in the long run, the unfulfilled potential will probably bother you, too.

I want to get outside myself. I don't want to get outside my surroundings so much.

I want to write stories about other people. (The stories I write now, for other people, are always about me.) I want to change my view of myself for myself, to allow other people in. I want the insecurity that helps me to build myself into a better writer and someone who constantly tries harder to remain, but I want the insecurity that keeps me from trying and always keeps me down on myself to go away.

A friend, talking about me a couple weeks ago, actually asked someone, "How can someone with such a big ego be so down on himself all the time?"

Years ago, someone else told me that I tried to attract attention by bemoaning constantly how bad everything in my life was, how terrible my childhood was, how ugly I felt, how insecure I was. They said I was like The Boy Who Cried "Wolf."

How do you open your own window and allow yourself to grow? How can you be less self-conscious while writing something about your own selfishness? Doesn't a self-analysis of your own self-centered nature kinda defeat the purpose if you want rid of that nature?

I want to rid myself of who I am and then get on with who I want to be. My friend Lupo (who never really thought I was ugly ... and I was resorting to an easy joke in the earlier entry when I said he did) asked me this week if I realized how much energy I spent on beating myself up and not getting over things.

At first, I thought he was right, yet it was a curse of my own memory. But having a good memory is not the reason that I let things bother me. It's my choice to let things bother me. It's my choice to not let things go. It's my choice, partially at least, to obsess over stuff.

Lupo said to me that, even though I found it comfortable to beat up on myself, I would be a better friend to others once I learned to treat myself better.

He's right. But he left out something.

Once I stop the old habits, I need to actually apply or rechannel that energy into actually doing something with my talent, which I have. (And, having read the works of other hopeful writers or lesser writers who've had better success, I see that I really need to refocus my energy away from comparing my life and my degree of efforts to others. I'm only really in competition with myself, after all.)

This attitude adjustment is going to take time, lots of work and a lesson in how to relax.

Consider it a relocation of attitude and focus, rather than place.

I need to do this. I need to do this for me.