Me; Naked

I’m sitting here in the darkness of my girlfriend’s apartment. 2010 is coming to an end, and I am happy. And while I feel the tinge of melancholy on this Christmas Eve, it’s temporary. I am not defined by it.

But that’s a new thing. I’ve always been defined by my melancholy. While people have always remarked that I have a smile on my face, or that I’m a pleasure to meet in mixed company – the dark fissures always appeared with intimacy. It was a disease that plagued me even when I had no reason to. I could probably blame my parents with this; some sort of upbringing that did not conform to the norms of society. I could probably blame a failure on someone’s part along my path to development. But, sitting here in this dark room, I can now see the context of the past decade – maybe even my entire life – with the person that should be blamed for things: me.

If you’ve been following my blogs through the criss cross journey of now-defunct networks, ill-informed URLs, thematic endeavors gone awry – you’ll realize that one of the only subjects I ever write about is love. Not just love, but love of the unrequited variety. What I never realized until this evening was that the reason that I loved writing about that was not because of emotional turmoil but rather this intense desire to emote in a certain way: The way of the tortured artist. Van Gogh with his ear removed. Dylan covering the tracks with blood. Rimbaud with his infernal groom Verlaine. Being well-read, over-educated, and over-analytical – I romanticized emotional upheaval as the highest form of art.

My “art”, to use the term very lightly, was always manufactured. When I would read my poetry in coffee shops from Armory Square to the West Village – I was reading farces. Poems about heartbreak stemming from manufactured or manipulated facts about past loves. When the audience applauded, or someone came up to me to tell me I inspired them, or they admired me – I would secretly laugh at them for their inability to see the joke I just played at them. My art contained a sense of misery that I grew fond of, feel akin to, and never wanted to release. I manufactured my own melancholy for reasons I can never fully explain – except for the fact that I always feel lonesome when it’s gone.

I haven’t felt loneliness in 2010. I started the year with a crushing emotional jolt that was strangely liberating and ended it with that narrative taking a turn that I never would have expected: a happy one. Without my melancholy, would I be the same person? Would I be able to produce the same art that I wanted to? Could I produce something beautiful; something new?

In fact, what I’m seeing in myself is new. I feel naked in the garden; and yet finding out the truth was not my original sin but rather my penance for a decade of what, for lack of a better term, amounted to selfishness. It is a pinnacle moment in a person’s life when they allow themselves to finally be happy. For some it happens early. For others, it might never happen. For me, it’s been this evolution over the past few years. Maybe it wasn’t the exact moment, but I feel that gazing upon those Flatirons in Colorado started things off for me. Maybe it was simply the fact that I left everything behind me to start anew.

Like being cast from the Garden, I am naked and in unknown lands. A repentent man, I find direction in the introspection of tonight. My 20′s, it will be documented, was not that different than most people, yet it was quite the journey to reflect upon. I’m excited and feeling positive about what opportunities lay ahead. I feel calm in this newfound nakedness.

I am cured.

The Absence of Analog

Over the last year, I’ve stopped keeping an analog journal for the first time in my life. It has, mostly, to do with my lack of a work/life balance, the absence of a good desk in my small NYC apartment, and free time. Still – I miss it.

Here are some old images from my journaling days:

I have over 45 journals of my writings. They are hidden in boxes and will probably be discovered after I pass. I don’t know what’s in most of them. I do know I keep important things written down. I chronicle the things that matter to me. I’ve moved to the digital realm but I miss the feeling of really writing. It cleans out the soul. I need to get in the practice of it again.