to be brutally honest it’s:
a.) totally and completely my fault
b.) haunting me when i least expect it
c.) weighing down on my entire life
d.) coating every other aspect of my life in a distinct sheen of failure
e.) unavoidable
2001 saw an entirely different version of me, a tad too idealistic and hopeful. i knew what i wanted with my future, i knew what i came to new england for, but when i thought about how to get from point A to point B, i froze up. it’s best explained — in my head — by the process of trying to learn a foreign language. everything is murky and unfamiliar. you are inundated with detail and vocabulary, it keeps coming and coming, but there is still a catch between the side you know and the side you don’t: the mental translation misfires. when i was 19 i memorized over 300 latin words — nouns, verbs, adjectives — i memorized their noun declensions and cases…but i labor heavily trying to sync up the english and the latin. it’s not effortless, i’ve never quite yet managed to flick the switch between one or the other. and it is so frustrating.
this is the setting for the rest of my so-called higher education. mental translative misfire. i could get to point A easily — less easily as time goes on, though, if we’re to continue being honest — and even point A(sub1) with not too much effort. but the point where it matters, just shy of really reaching point B, i can’t reach. i struggle, i get frustrated, i don’t understand…i fail. the point where it becomes really important, where things really matter, this is the point where i cease to comprehend. this is the point where all of a sudden all of my vices and faults become glaringly clear: i don’t work hard enough, i procrastinate, i PROCRASTINATE, i am not smart enough, i don’t try hard enough.
mental misfire and the things that are entirely vital to my progress & understanding…these are the things that i miss. something is lost in the translation and it is no one’s fault but my own.
and then i get to the point, where all of a sudden i’m not 19 anymore and the world is not laid out in tempting splendor at my feet. things that i gazed at in hazy speculation how glare back at me with the garish cold light of reality. reality is my failure. my faults. my shortcomings. 2007 sees version 2.5 as a confusion of a previous version, paying for all of that version’s mistakes. version 3.0 does not look promising…
reality is i’ve been living in a place where i feel out of place for going on 6 years now with practically nothing to show for it. reality is the entire reason for me being here disintegrated beyond recognition and there is no chance (not even the slightest, most miniscule of chances) of me resurrecting or reviving it. reality is i don’t know what i’m doing with my life or anything anymore. reality is i’m not sure i ever did. reality is the fact that i left for here because i felt restless and out of place and it didn’t change. reality is…
everything that is wrong in my life, is my own fucking fault.
when i meet people for the first time — and usually through work or mutual friends — meet acquaintances for the first time, they ask the dreaded small talk questions of near strangers and my answers feel like a lie crawling out of my throat. they ring hollow in my ears. version 3.0 of me has not yet learned the skill of lying to itself. this bleeds into conversations with others.
“how long have you lived in MA?”
nearly 6 years… too long…
“what brought you here?”
school i’m not really sure anymore. superiority complex, most likely
“where are you from?”
coloradoi don’t know
i’m 24 and still paying for every stupid thing i ever did when i was 19, when i was 21, when i was 22…23…still paying for it. and the fucked up thing is, i never really did anything worth paying for.
i ripped myself off.
and i can’t afford it.
