The Rain Keeps Falling All Day, But I Can Feel Spring In The Air, That Would Mean Nothing To Me, Nothing If You Were Not Here

--"If Rain", Sambassadeur

I was asked today if there was one fictional character I relate to the most. People always assume that I would identify with my childhood heroes like Kurt Wagner, Henry Sugar, and others of that ilk. It's true, I do see a bit of myself in each of those people. Hell, I can see a lot of me in Amos too, for that matter. Yet none of those individuals can handle the one creation of fiction that I empathize with the most. I don't know why, but I've always identified with Sara Stanley the most because, as I put it:

She's a storyteller, but because she is a storyteller she never really gets to be in the stories themselves, you know? She's kind of like a director or an artist; always the critical eye, commenting on the world around her, but never really a part of it like other people are.

I feel like that sometimes--that I'm more an observer than a participant.

I don't really feel like I do much. I fall into the trap about writing about life rather than living a very exciting one. It's worse for me, though, because I insist on chronicling my non-existence here time and time again. Yet, rather than tell you the mundane details of the events of my present tense, I try to jazz up my life by telling you all the exciting anecdotes of my past. I delve into experiences and choices I made years, sometimes decades, ago in the hopes of trying to convince you all that I'm still that exciting and passionate person. Or maybe I'm just trying to convince myself that I'm still that inexplicable man of different pursuits that I used to be. However, most of the time I fear that's just to cover up the fact that I don't really get energized about much these days. I'm simply not all that enthused about anything at all anymore.

Another tactic I employ time and time again is telling you all about the unique characters I've had the great fortune of running into in my lifetime. I don't know how interesting you would find this site if I didn't keep trotting out the same strong supporting cast in my life. How would I even function as being passably worth mention if I didn't have the people that I have to play off of? I'd just be talking to myself, bouncing ideas off myself, which, I fear, would ultimately lead nowhere at all. It's only because I can tell you tales about how my good friend Jennifer died, leaving behind her a treasure trove of wisdom to me, that I seem wise. It's only because I can spin yarns and yarns of how I had it so good with the like of DeAnn and Jina, that I think you can relate to how far from the halcyon days I've fallen. And everybody knows I would only be half a person if I didn't have my Breannie showing me how much more I can be.

I think that's my point. I have a skulking suspicion that my life isn't as interesting as I seem to write it to be. I believe that my life isn't all that remarkable, but I somehow can write it remarkably. I could recount an absolute nothing of a day like last Sunday, where I basically laid around and napped all day, but, because my mind's always coming up with tangents and firing off grandiose themes for me to relate to and write about, I make it sound like I have these grand epiphanies every other day. Instead of writing about what I do (since it's obvious, to me, at least, that I don't do a lot), I write a lot about what I think and what I believe about what I do. Dissecting my life comes easier for me than actually living, which, if you think about it, isn't how all of this is supposed to work.

More often than not I'm less scared of disappearing off the face of the earth and nobody missing me than disappearing off the face of the earth and losing out on my greatest subject. Me.

I've somehow become my own best character and guinea pig all rolled into one.

I know most wouldn't care if I just up and blinked out of existence... but paradoxically I'd miss having someone to focus on for my stories. If I was forced to write about something more real, more substantial than the fluff of my day-to-day meanderings, I don't know if I could do it. I don't know if I could focus my attention on something vital to the human condition.

It's just easier to comment from afar about a life that doesn't feel like it really belongs to me. If I actually started to feel like I owned my life and was in charge of what happened to me rather than feeling like an author manipulating the events to come up with best dramatic tale, I would write less reflexively and more actively. I don't know if I'm ready for that yet.


tell me what's on your mind

Like I said, Sara Stanley are like-minded in that regard. It's easier to control the stories I tell about my life than it is to control the life itself.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers