Life doesn’t move like it used to. There are times when I realize that, as every second passes, I am failing. Knowing this slows everything down — makes every step one of caution. Sometimes I make these realizations in my own time, at my own pace. But other times, they come to me force-fed. Through the words or actions of someone else. That’s how they’ve come this time.
I read someone else’s words. Words that I forgot existed. I read every one of them… letter for letter. Over an hour passed and I didn’t even notice my own breath. In those moments, I became you. I knew how you lived, where you went, what upset you, who you fucked, and how much you liked it. In those moments, life moved again. As transparently as it started, it stopped. I was me again. I was a failure again.
It eats at me — pulls at the very thread of what makes me who I am. It isn’t because of how my failure affects me. I can live with my own misfortunes, especially when I am the cause of them. But I can’t accept how they affect others — those more important than myself. When there’s a problem… I fix it, goddamn it, because that’s what I do. But I can’t fix this. I’ve tried. And tried. And tried. And I don’t even know how to try.
Sometimes I consider talking about it… to anyone who will listen, really. But it doesn’t matter. I cough up one hair-ball someone cleans it up and then life’s supposed to be peachy. Well it doesn’t work that way this time. It doesn’t just clean up and go away. It’s still there… it’s still haunting… it’s still robbing me of life.
But I analyze. Fuck do I analyze — daily… even hourly, sometimes. For the first time, analysis leads no where. I can’t think this through. I can’t solve it with logic. I can’t force a response from myself. I can’t create a solution. I can’t repair synapses that don’t even seem to exist any more.
There have been times — fleeting moments, wonderful nights, minutes of perfection — where everything was right and good. I analyze them, too, over and over with each repetition a bit more hazy like a worn video tape. The answers don’t come.
I consider the possibility that it isn’t me. I consider the idea that it isn’t my problem. I consider the slim chance that it’s something else: my circumstances or my surroundings or my childhood or, possibly just maybe, those that it affects most. But I’m quick to rule it out. I don’t want to point fingers when I have no evidence. I don’t want to create a scapegoat just to ease my mind. That’s not my nature — that’s now how I work. If I could say, with certainty, “This is the problem and once that is fixed my failure will dissolve” I would. I’d say it, deal with it, help fix it, move on and be happy.
I’ve found the root of this problem a thousand times so far. Maybe. You see, finding the root of a problem is only a fraction of the solution. Fixing it is the harder part. And when the cause is so general, or so abstract, the only thing I can do is dig further… find the cause of the cause. If you follow that road far enough, and believe me I have, you come to a field. A giant field. A field so large that you can’t see any of the other roads that might connect to it and you have only two choices: follow it’s edge and take the next road you see, or turn around and walk all the way back. It doesn’t matter which one you choose. It always leads back here… to failure.
For a moment, I was you. I lived your life. I raised your child. I worked your job. I played with your friends. I wrote your poems. I fucked your lover. I bled your blood. I promised your promises. I held my child as she slept in my arms. I made love in someone else’s apartment. I recalled my drug ridden school life. For a moment I lived and didn’t feel failure. But now, I’m just back to being me.
(And now, I realize even more why I need some place else to put this stuff.)