Two weeks have passed since this blog has been updated, probably more. Things seem to get worse rather than better and now the inevitable has happened. I feel defeated. I have not written a word. I’m back where I began. Wondering over and over why I do this, why I write on a blog with meager views every week. It could be a number of things but with the year we had it all seems rather meaningless.
It has been six months since I began this blog. Now I have had to remind myself why I began it in the first place, feeling on some days as though I am screaming into the void, wondering if anyone other than the sightseers at the brink of the precipice are listening at all.
Worse still I never did rewrite that first draft of a script I so proudly lamented about. Nor have I finished a draft of a novel I’d promised my sister I would work on just for her. I’ve been lame, an incompetent lump of meat lying on her unflattering arse wasting her days watching Sion Sono films and Anime, claiming its research, and losing the words to form coherent critical thinking. I’ve become a bag of emotions, a frayed sack of feelings and air. It’s as though I have nothing to say anymore.
I have travelled little in my life, feel older than my years and fear that I have wasted my youth on fear and low self-esteem. With each of these thoughts I have nothing to soothe them. In my mind, they ferment.
When I read back over what I say, however, it makes me miserable. It doesn’t read like me and yet they are the things I have said, have left the tips of my fingers with each tap of the keyboard before me. They are things I am willing to say about myself.
I wouldn’t wish this on anyone else. I want your years to be brighter. I want a world where our escapism is one more success, our havens are our own; regret-free, guilt-free.
This year has been as contrary as Mary but without a beautiful garden to admire in forgiveness. We’ve all suffered, lost loved ones, gone months at a time without seeing family in attempt to conform to ever-changing virus that threatens us all. We’ve felt our mental health slip further and further away from our control. The pressure of productivity, the desire to return to the simple pleasures, the claustrophobia have all been overwhelming and meagerly counterbalanced by our desire to appreciate the beautiful planet we live on, dwelling in our little escapes. Some of us have managed to finish long unread books, completed series after series; watched complete filmographies discovered long lost passions…
It’s a shame the world we live in can't revel in these little achievements.
But continue on must our little achievements. Let’s not make big statements about the New Year being all we want it to be. Much is out of our hands. Fate has played its cards right and has seized the world by the scruff of its neck, left us dangling and watching events unfold helplessly. So enjoy the little things you can control. And in in time you can take control of more and more, with each slice of your life growing larger and more palatable. You have people to support you as you take each bite, there is always someone who believes in you and those are little miracles in themselves. We can get through it together. That’s what I hope for everyone this year.
So I say to myself…
You wrote a script as shitty as it is and far from what you want it to be now. But that’s good, a step forward to a work that has so much potential to be so many things.
You wrote over 50,000 words on a novel just for yourself. You will finish it because you know the ending. Whilst your head is busy you can’t but once you allow your self to focus on one thing at a time, your brain will make way for the story.
Do you regret watching Sion Sono films? This is just an example of the mountains of films and anime you have watched this year. You’ve educated yourself more on international cinema more this year than you have in your whole life and now have a bigger picture of this impressive world we live in. They inspire you and astound you. One day you can put those thoughts into words, one day you can comprehend what you’ve seen.
You’ve read so much, returned to your roots and forgotten what you loved about books in the first place. They take you father than this world ever can. In time you will see the places you want to go, but without books you would have stayed in your dusty room, watching the pieces float through the beams of sunshine leaking through your ever-drawn curtains, thinking about all the things you would never achieve.
Something has come out of this year. This blog and all the posts I have somehow written are an achievement in themselves. And that void a screech into, it is for me to do. I do it because I want to; the blog was always for me more than anyone else. So I am grateful to those with me at the abyss, listening politely to my ranting’s and ravings, my mercurial disposition, my gushing’s over the latest obsession.
Thank you to those who reply to my posts on social media, who read my articles and discuss its content, or soothe me with kind words. You are the reminder of what stories can do for all of us, what writing can be for a writer when they shed their self-doubt, what films can be to unapologetic film-lovers.
As I said before, no big exclamations for the future are necessary. Embrace your pleasures. One teeny tiny step at a time is all we can manage and that’s okay. We can face the tide of unknown, fear and doubt. But as long as we have our little pleasures, we can get by. The bigger picture can wait. The bigger picture can’t play out without the little pixels to fall into place. Let’s all focus on our pixels for a while.
Be Brave.
Be Kind.
Embrace your Haven.
Happy New Year to all of you and your pixels!
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