Hiding in Plain View

This is a hidden post. It wasn't written on September 29th, 2005. Far from it. But I didn't know where else to write. No-one looks here, anyway. Who'd read the archives of something they don't know exists? -Or of something they've read before and didn't really take notice of then, either? It's not as though you'll find pearls of wisdom here...I'll charitably assume you've at least read some of the rest: you are expecting either caustic amusement or depressive tracts about life in LesBohemia. Well, you can fuck right off. I'm writing this because I want to, you don't come into it.

I could write whatever I like in a hidden post - who'd know? I should have written what I liked, when I liked anyway- but I didn't. Self-censorship/ self-editing. Wanting to seem "amusing" or worse, "nice". Pretending to be part of some online "community". What was the fucking point? What is the fucking point, eh? Oh, I won't get answers, I know that. But maybe I'll get myself some new questions.

So, if you've read any of this before - you think you know me.
You don't. I hardly know myself - how could you?
But let me set a few things straight.

1. I am bored.
-Bored beyond credulity at the smallness of the life I have created, the non-career I have passively let drift over me...
And yet I am far too terrified of anything new and exciting that I couldn't contemplate doing/being anything different. What scares me? Failure.
- And success.

(-I never said I made any sense.)

Someone pointed out that if I have given up hope, then I might as well not live: you know what? They might very well have a point...

2. I gave up hope when I was twenty-three.
Twenty three!
I sat myself down and talked - aloud - about what a middling, meddling mediocrity I was- that being "promising"- a promising student, writer, whatever- when younger(!) was a false promise, and I was promise breaker; that I should (even if it was by force) accept that I will never amount to more than... (-well, even then I couldn't finish the sentence. What is the point of having abstract ambition? I can't put a task or a job to my ambition; I want to "be" better. How woolly-minded and pointless is that?) "I am a mediocrity!" I shouted it aloud, wandering the streets of Stratford on Avon, almost hallucinating from cheap whisky and self-loathing. I believed it then.

Now, I believe I may have become it. I wasn't mediocre: I was scared and alone and mired in past hurts. I still could be, I'm not sure (certainty goes with age, doesn't it?) but I have become almost invisible, I am so cautious and reticent.

I want to be so much more that this pathetic, wary paddler on the edge of life.

3. I don't need your pity/sympathy/contempt/compassion. I can supply my own, thank you. You might find my way of navigating my emotions to be scary, even nonsensical - but I've been charting this area for some time now, and I know myself far better than I let on.

4. When I say I'm OK, or that I don't know why I can't sleep, am depressed, etc., etc., I am lying through my teeth: I know precisely and exactly why (and I know that you wouldn't like the truth and so I am sparing your feelings.)

There might be some other hidden posts along the way. You might find them. Then again - you might want to ask yourself why the fuck you are looking for them in the first place? What are you looking for? Why here? Why?