First

My failure is a numbers game. How many days was that ice cream in the freezer? How many nights have I washed my face? How many miles have I walked? How many hours have I slept? How much money have I spent? How much money have I wasted? How many payments until I no longer owe? How many months until I cannot have a baby? How many years until I find a partner? How many weddings until I am the only one alone?

How many. How much.

I have reached an unheard of point of neutrality in issues that were previously great struggles. There is still ice cream in my fridge. I will put no numbers here, I will give you a word: “Many.” That is the number of days I have enjoyed eating it. There is money in my savings account. I will put no numbers here, I will give you a word: “Enough.” I have never experienced this before. There is enough money, there is enough ice cream, I will not eat the world, I will not spend to its death, I will die alone, but I will not be lonely.

I have spent years quantifying my failures, attempting over and over again to make sense of them in this space. This space -- a wide window where I stare out and in and out and in, blinking confusedly, “What is this? And this? And this?” I have made no sense. Except the sense that is the unknowing, the existing inbetween, the mystery of He is.

I no longer want to write to make sense. I am writing to find, to excavate broken bones, cracked plates, crumbling bricks, bent spoons. And then I will look. Maybe I will write a story about a bone from the leg of a man inside some grand cultural narrative, that really is the bone of a wild creature who lived alone in some forest. I want to say I will write to make art of my life. But that is too lofty. I am no Tennessee Williams.

I believe in gifts. And somewhere buried in a shit pile of judgement, failure, self loathing, and self abuse, there is a knowledge that this this is something I must do. And if I don’t, I’ll die. Simply.

I am writing to write. And some days it may be terrible. And some days it may be brilliant. But I want to do it.  I want to do it. I will come back. I will come back again and again.