What I see is Unreal

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been hard on myself. I’ve always had high expectations but they never seem to last too long, which is nice. I get excited, I fizzle out, I reflect inward, inflict psychoanalytic pain, forget, and repeat. It’s tiresome, cyclical, and above all else, entirely of my own imagination.

Seldom do I put my wants and dreams out there in definitive language. I’ve always believed that doing so makes it easier to fail. But a few overarching themes hang around. I want to make movies and perform on stage. I want to find love. I want to calm my mind.

Typing those words felt like an act of self-sabotage. It still does.

No matter how many times you hear the same advice, it doesn’t click until one fateful day. Almost nothing can predicate when that day comes for me. A friend tells me for the billionth time just in different words? A life event that startlingly resembles what I was just thinking about? Fuck, maybe even a song.

Regardless, things take time when you haven’t reeled your brain in. Negativity bias won’t allow you more than a temporal joy. Like ice cream, sex, a tv show you’ve seen a million times. ADHD certainly doesn’t help. Hyper-fixation coupled with a lack of focus, for me, manifests itself as self-sabotage. I see the thing I should do. But that’s it. The simple act of thinking “why should I do this thing” is often just a bridge too far.

Even as I write this (whatever the hell this is) I can’t seem to find my silver lining. But I’m going to force myself into that train of thought.

My silver lining is blurry, jagged, and doesn’t connect all the time. But it’s there.

Holy hell, do I have awesome friends. People that yearn to talk to me. And listen. My family is the model family... you know, siblings that are always down to lend a hand moving or just throw down for a Sunday barbecue. An extended family that I can laugh with. A mother who’s done nothing but give. And the memory of a father who’s last words were “your mother and I are so proud of you”. At least, those are some the last words I remember. You get pretty foggy when you’re dying of shit cancer.

Sorry.

I’ve lived a pretty simple life. In search of joy. Purging myself of the things I don’t see myself as.

Sorry (what a gag). I’ve always encouraged people to say “I apologize” instead of “sorry”. I still cling to the idea that linguistics can massively change our perspective on all things, including ourselves.

But back to the purge. There’s this idyllic version of myself that I see sometimes. Not out in the real world. Back up there again in my head. But what I see is unreal.

Refer to the picture above. That’s my dad and me up at Pike’s Peak, Colorado. That’s one of maybe three or four pictures of just me and the big guy. In his life, I don’t think I realized what I had. I had that reality standing right next to me.

At his memorial, his brother told a story about one night when his car broke down. My dad showed up with two batteries in his truck (as he always had two batteries in his truck for the special occasion). “Who the hell has two batteries in their car?” reeled uncle Paul. That got a laugh.

The man was selfless. He was a giver, a friend, and a damn fine giver of advice (often over a cold one). I didn’t realize it even as I was just typing it... but that’s what I want to be. I like to think of myself as those things but so often I get in my own way. Maybe it’s the times when I was growing up, the friends I made, too much TV, the period of my life where I smoked weed like someone bet me I couldn’t. I’m not too sure. Despite it all, I’m sometimes lucky enough to weed through all that and see myself for what I am.

Complicated.

I’d be foolish to think that the mythical Daniel out there in the ether exists free of worry or pain. I’ve done my fair bit to hurt people and I’ve got my reasons to hurt. It’s tough to forget that. It’s even tougher to forgive that.

But sometimes, I’ll take a look at my dad and see myself. People have always said I’m the spitting image of him. Sometimes I see it, sometimes I don’t. But in those chance times I do, I’m at my happiest.

I don’t know what this is. Word vomit. A writing exercise to get my creative juices flowing. My first diary entry? I’m not gonna proofread it before I post it. I just felt like these were the things I needed to say. Maybe one day I’ll forget about it. And then hopefully remember it. Relearning some of the things I’ve written here. But if you’ve read to here, know this...

What I see is unreal

I've written my own part

Eat of the apple, so young

I'm crawling back to start

2/3/2021