Day 52: What I like, what I hate and what I'm ready to leave in the dust

Once upon a time, a southern writer and journalist came to the Pacific Northwest.

Cascadia.

And after the worst six days of his life — and this from a guy who grew up gay in the buckle of the Baptist bible belt AND has withdrawn from hydrocodone-based painkillers on multiple occasions — he hoped he would settle into a new life of writing and tranquility.

But after only seven quickly passing weeks, the writer realized he was feeling far from tranquil.

He was barely writing.

Barely resting.

Barely finding anything to feel any sort of pleasure about.

Food no longer tasted great.

He was always cold.

His skin was becoming a dry, patchy mess that even the thickest lotion wouldn't moisten.

He no longer cared for the meetings that had gotten him here.

Work wasn't even close to what he'd imagined. In fact, it felt much more like work than it felt like following his dream. He realized he wasn't taking that next step on his career path. The journey was stunted.

So he thought.

And he prayed (but not as much as he once did, because even that had lost something — some of the magic — that it once promised).

And he decided — as he had once before — in the words of Stephen King (who wrote as Richard Bachman) writing about Thad Beaumont (who wrote as George Stark), that the only was to do it is to do it.

And he remembered that the happiest times in his life were when he was being the most creative, being true to his own personal muse(s).

So he ran out and bought a bunch of records: an album from The Human League and one from Donovan, something from Thompson Twins, and a few soundtracks, including Saturday Night Fever.

And he bought an armful of trashy paperbacks: Jackie Collins and Sidney Sheldon and Barbara Taylor Bradford.

And he downloaded a few playlists on YouTube of the the television shows that made him happiest.

And he decided it was time to pick up an old project.

The Stories from the 318.

As written in the 509.

Maybe this time it will be a little better.

At least he'd be a little truer to himself.

Because life in this little town in the Pacific Northwest... this job that he'd taken... this life he was leading... none of it was even a fraction of the idea he had before he arrived.

Sometimes, reality is much more endurable when it's envisioned in future tense. Living it in present tense is another story.