The Moose in the Closet: New Beginnings: Life

Before I get to today’s story I just wanted to check in with you all – tell you I went to the Buzzscope drink-up and it was mighty fun. Since Guy (pronounced “gee”, believe it or not) shook on it I feel confident in announcing that The Hive, my new column talked about in my last Here’s the Thing, will be hosted by the wonderful folks over at Buzzscope instead of the DCC blog. I’m happy about the move, I think Buzzscope is producing some of the greatest comic content today and after talking about Guy about the site and his vision for it I think it’s safe to say that if there is a comic revolution going on, and I believe there is, this site is going to be our focal point.

I do have a SOLID fucking idea for the DCC blog but it all depends on how much juice I bank off The Hive since that’s going to keep me busy as fuck.

Also got to have a couple of drinks with Jeremy, better known as The Pickytarian, and he’s cool people with a cool little comic blog – he has The Moose seal of approval which is worth somewhere between a Peoples’ Choice Award and George Bush’s word. But, hey, at least it’s worth something.

Ok, folks, story time…

_________

This is a continuation of yesterday’s story, all the information you may need can be found there. After reading over the 423 story I realize it needs some editing and tightening as far as how it ties into me and where I’m at right now but hopefully for the more astute reader this serves as a nice little window into my motivation and philosophies. I can tighten it up when I get some publisher signed on to publish The Moose.

Things were going well with Carolina – we talked on the phone a few times and she came to our first volleyball practice and she was probably the best player on the team. I started talking about things we should do together – feeling out what movies she might like, restaurants she might enjoy. In Boston I had several date restaurants scoped out, different atmospheres and types of food, all depending on what the lady might like.

All the while I was back in my routine. The grades were picking up but I was just sort of fantasizing through life – writing poems about depression and novels that basically had me playing the life I wanted to have. I still had this weird delusion that life was going to hand me everything I ever wanted – that it was all going to drop it on my lap and that what happened the past several months was just a hiccup in the grand scheme of my destiny.

I was seriously delusional, living in a fantasy world, and that’s what you need to know.

After the first volleyball practice, however, Carolina stops returning my phone calls. I wasn’t calling constantly – I called the day after practice to see if she wanted to go to the movies. I called several days later to remind her of our next practice. After she missed practice I called her one last time to see if she was alright.

My perception was starting to fall apart, again.

I talked to her RA, eventually, after several weeks of not hearing back from her. She tells me Carolina’s father pulled her out of school for personal reasons. If I was just a regular ‘ole resident it would have stopped there but I pushed on and used my “friendly fellow RA” label to get more information.

Turns out Carolina was an insomniac. She was taking steps to deal with the problem but this one night she blacked out and fell onto her nightstand – knocked a candle over and started a small fire in her room. She was fine; a little choked up and worried but thanks to thin walls in the brownstones her neighbor came by to check up on her before the fire alarm even kicked in. When word got back to Carolina’s father he sent for her to come home and put her in a hospital closer to home to help her with her problem.

Now, when I heard this, I was shocked. You see – I instantly went back to the dream – where the girl with long back hair was engulfed in flame, holding the piece of paper that read “423”. I started wondering what it meant – if the early morning fire started at 4:23 AM and coming up with scenarios that explained what this means to my life – how this all ties to together with my grand plan, with my delusional sense of importance.

Then I just sort of stopped thinking.

Some would look at what happened and call it fate or destiny or coincidence or a fluke. For the first time I saw it for what it was – a story. That’s all it is, I don’t need to be anyone besides myself to make this story any better – it’s perfect just the way it is. I don’t need to think or fantasize on a point anymore to make it a more viable story.

In other words – life gives you a story every fucking day. I just needed to start writing it.

I realized that everyday life, from the most mundane to the most fantastical shit, is more exciting than any story some Hollywood think-tank can come up with. You can take an ordinary, everyday event and grow it into something that entertains the masses – something relatable and real and personal and therapeutic to put down on paper.

It was a realization that turned me around like nothing ever has before. I stopped dreaming and started doing. I started my quote book that day – a tome of quotes I compiled over the past seven years. I started a journal – jotting down feelings and situations and drawing on them for stories. I stopped writing poetry, it wasn't my thing, I was only using it as an outlet to express my depression – I stopped placing myself into every story, I stopped writing Jason ROdriguez fan-fic which is what I call it now when I look back at it – I started studying other people’s lives and making them characters.

I started seeing stories in people on the train – complete strangers. I’d look at someone and try to work out who they are, what they do for a living, how many kids they have, when they got married. And I started writing it all down.

In my writing books I have stories for hundreds of characters – you’ve been reading a bunch of them for the past eleven months, I’ve drawn a lot of them from my own life.

This may not sound like a huge revelation to you but the minute you realize your life has more substance than the life you fantasize having is the minute you start living. It’s the minute you start taking more chances, appreciating the small things, realizing what’s going on in your own head and how it relates to your own life. It’s the minute you start letting people in – you start to draw from their own stories and find threads to your own life. It’s the minute you start accepting blame, realizing mistakes and become motivated enough to start making something of your life. It’s the minute you really feel hurt instead of finding excuses for it. You start to realize how selfish you’ve been and start taking steps to rectify it. You start to realize how important other people are in your life – how they’re major players in your own story and how their stories interact with yours.

You take on a new responsibility – a story teller in life – someone who appreciates the needs in somebody else’s life and rewrites your own story to fill it.

You start connecting – and you put that down on paper and you can connect with complete strangers within minutes.

I became a writer that day. Not the best writer that ever lived and certainly not the most prolific but I learned how to reach people, which, at the end of the day, is what a writer is supposed to do.

And, in turn, I started dealing with all my shit the way it’s supposed to be dealt with. One day at a time – and always understanding it is what is and it’s that way for other people as well.

Labels: mitc

New Beginnings: Life

Thursday, December 29, 2005

0 Comments

Previous Posts