Stepping out of Shadows

Shame haunts me.

We all have vices. Personally, my favourite one is greed. Or perhaps envy. I was never really clear on the details. All I know is that I covet my neighbour’s everything. And Pride certainly puts its two cents in simply by my sitting here pronouncing my favourite sin. And all of that I’m okay with. My ego is content, realizing (or deceiving itself into realizing) that I am capable of beauty and perfection in spite of these things. Often it celebrates the fact that I’m beautiful and perfect because of them.

But shame is the weapon the devil uses against me with stunning efficacy. I am ashamed of my dismal career. Of how much I was capable of and how much I haven’t accomplished. I’m ashamed that I have a well admired degree from a decent university and that I did nothing with it. I’m ashamed I that I cannot recall any of the knowledge I supposedly gained from the endeavour. I’m ashamed that I don’t know more about stuff. I always manage to screw up or let things pass by, as if it were the very nature of who I am. And I’m sure as shit ashamed that I work at such a shitty job. I’m basically ashamed the lacklustre version of myself I see when I look backwards.

When someone asks me what I do or what I’ve done, I avoid the subject. I avoid it reflexively. A hot flush wells up in my emotions, and my fight-or-flight response kicks in. That dread in the pit of my stomach kicks and screams to change the subject. My answer is always awkward or paused; my secret the levy of impending doom. That’s the devil’s weapon in full.

It might be suggested that, if I can comment on these things here, I can’t be that ashamed. It could be claimed that I have plenty of things that I can be proud of, and that tomorrow’s always a new day. But all of that misses the point. I’m not unaware of the shame, nor am I unaware of my life. I’m acutely aware. I have a friend who, sometimes, hates it when I comment on her beauty. I could never quite understand that – because she’s quite evidently beautiful, and my words were always motivated by honesty and truth. But I think this feeling I have is something like it. Because when someone tells me I’m a good person, sometimes it can’t help but cause me to reflect on all the areas that I’m a wash-up. No well-meaning words can fix that.

Somewhere, deep down behind all of that shame (and resultant fear), is the real me. Underneath it.

As anyone who’s been my friend over the past months (read: years (read: intimate friend)) knows that I’ve been working to uncover that man. Discover him. It is an unbelievably slow process.

But I know it will be an incredible find. I know that because my writing teaches me a bit about him. For one thing, he has amazing sex. And more importantly, though just barely, he is real. He is really him, and not someone who’s walking with his face to the past.

First I took time off. Then I broke down. Then I went to Thailand. Then I got a job. Then I went to school for business.

The accounting professor mixed up the class numbers on our first day. The management prof changed her lesson plan at the last minute. The human resources professor apologized for having a testing system that wasn’t the best for students and the marketing professor tried too hard during orientation to be our best friend. This at an institution well regarded for its successful business program.

“Defend everything you say in this class with statistics and facts,” my last professor said, “and remember that people will always act in their best interest. I’m sorry, but that’s it’s just the way it is.”

Sure teaches you a lot about flaws.

One of my professors questioned, politely, why someone in my position didn’t just enrol in a Master’s of Business. The hidden hypothesis he was asserting was that a BBA was a lateral step at best. A needless repetition or possibly even a regression. I could not find the words to adequately explain myself. I could feel the devil stabbing at my heart.

But as I think back to the previous week of classes – the utter realism of honest mistakes, and flaws mixed in with youth, success and ambition, a creeping answer came to me. A simpler reason: The simple fact of the matter was, though I might try and justify, pontificate, and rationalize, I simply wanted to. For 4 years now, I have dreamt about starting over. About fighting back.

Now I am. This is where.

- Z


Epilogue –

My writing is an outlet that I do not intend to lose in the depth of schoolwork. Writing is not necessarily “a part of me” so much as it reveals a part of me. Aside from my ego’s desire to be beloved by hordes of people and make women wet with my words, the thing I like most about my art is that I feel most pure when I create. That, despite the loads of work I will be undertaking with school, is something I want to continue to make a priority.

A friend of mine continually mentions that the most popular online media (blogs, web-comics etc) is that which is updated frequently. To this end, I intend to start updating my blog (which contains what I post on facebook too) more frequently starting in October.

Once every two weeks, I’ll be posting. That’s a commitment. It may be a blog, it may be a creative writing piece, or I may try and do something different altogether. No matter what it is, it’ll always be from the heart.

I hope you’ll bookmark it. I hope you’ll feel comfortable giving your feedback.

As well, on the alternate weeks, I’ll be working with a friend(s?) of mine on a creative writing project involving photography and writing. More on that to come once I can sit down with her and organize how exactly it will work. Hopefully a third artistic project will materialize with my roommate(s) in the new year. I don’t think they really realize how serious I am about it. But I am.

Oh, and I think I’ll be advertising more, so tell your friends. Shameless, I know.

That’s the idea.

Raindrops

I got a chance to walk in the rain the other day. August 31st, actually. I got to say goodbye to my summer by walking a euphoric 38 minutes in the constant drizzle-pour-drizzle. It was glorious.

I love the rain. I am not a creature of the sea, but part of me always feels at home when I hear the rain. A soft drizzle on my skin reminds me that I’m alive. The spots on my glasses remind me of the windshield of a car, and like that car I can get out any time I want. Because I am not my glasses. I’m not my body. And, with my hands outstretched and my soggy clothing clinging, the rain gets that.

I sleep with the radio politely on. But evenings when it is raining, I listen to that alone. It has sent me peacefully to slumber when mental or physical pains thought to keep me otherwise awake for hours. While it’s true that there may be more comfortable things to hug and snuggle into – blankets, sweaters and people, for example – the rain holds you like a lover. The rain doesn’t pretend that the world is magically bright or wonderful. Nor does it seek to suggest that it’s dour and ugly. It knows that for every flower there is an overcast day. The rain knows every cliché.

The rain cries for you when you don’t have the strength to do it yourself. Like the world itself is releasing some pent up emotion, you cannot help but get swept up with it even if you can help sharing the tears.

Optimism can be a tricky thing. Even optimists can see that, half-full or half-empty, the cup could always have a lot more liquid in it. One of my favourite metaphors is flying. Specifically, not forgetting to fly. “Don’t forget to fly,” I tell people who I know have the sight – the capacity to see the world as it really is. Hook is one of my favourite movies, and once Pan remembered how to fly, everything else was in the bag. We can fly. We can be bigger, and better, and more magnificent than anything else in existence. Our childish imaginations, our lover’s hearts, and our moral souls are all echoes of this fundamental truth; this what-we-can-be. Don’t forget it, I say. Don’t forget to fly.

But as liberating as it is, to imagine one’s self breaking away from the chains of every-day monotony, grief, worry, and stress. It’s not very realistic. Because realistically, family and friendship politics are complicated. And two people can be in love but also not be perfect for one another. Unfortunately, a corporation that wants to change runs the risk of changing into non-existence. Some things you just can’t fly around.

But the rain is beautiful within that world of chains and complications. It has always represented to me a comfortable neutrality in the way that it represents reality. It says in its various forms: “yes. There are sucky parts about the world. And they are here to stay.” But despite what people often think reality is the best soil for optimism to grow in. Real love, success, happiness, and joy is not raised in blindness, but grown through the care of earnest hearts and open eyes. Optimism is nothing more than the desire to see such things grow.

Grow they shall, in spades, in the rain. That’s what I like about it.

A wet-t-shirt contest (as wonderful as it is) will never compare to the beauty of your breathless lover running in the door after being caught en route in a freak rainstorm.

(Yes, your hair is wet and frizzy. A mess, even. You’ve never been more beautiful.)

So when I found myself successful and happy about how my morning had gone on the 31st, with no where to be and all day to get there, I decided I wouldn’t take the bus. It was raining, and I wanted to walk home.

The rain will never dare say “everything will be okay.” But it does help you feel it.

Play in the rain,
- Z