The Hēathernet 20oz. to Geekdom

So I hide

Last night gave me an opportunity to catch up with a friend and mentor I hadn't seen or spoken to for sometime. I knew that the conversation would challenge me and that in some ways, although the context of our meeting was unfathomably different this year, it would once again shake me out of my annual Spring depression and prepare me to be a better and excited self as the year marches on.

My personality and my passions exist as a paradox. 

I find it difficult to keep in touch with others. Even with those who I consider the closest to me I can let disappear from my life for months at a time and I won't reach out. When I'm in a position of weakness I would prefer to struggle through without anyone knowing. I pretend to stay connected with a blog, or facebook, or instant messaging... but if I show my digital face on these systems and inquiries come bleeping or blinking on to my screen or phone I get up and walk away. Eat a snack and pretend I didn't see it. 

I can't explain how I am doing or what I am doing. I can try: I'm working at Target. I'm being less than what I thought I was capable of. I'm letting the dust build on my diploma. I'm letting hard work on episodes of Better Late Than Never become memories of better times and different people. I'm chipping away at the physical debt to the student loan corporation while the ways I feel indebted to the sacrifices of my family seem to grow only wider. 

I would rather erase such a paragraph than publish it. It's that kind of explanation of my life that makes me hide. I heard something similar come spilling out of my mouth to my friend last night and I immediately wish I could swallow it all back up. Such a litany of despair sounds like I'm whiny and self-centered. What I usually find even less bearable is the response, when my friends try to help me, to make me feel better, and to offer me advice. I don't feel worth the pity and worse yet, I usually don't want to take the advice, making me wonder why I broke with personal tradition and opened up in the first place. I'd rather remain a recluse.

That's my personality. That's where I've been. Inside myself.

How did it come about then, that what I love doing the most is creating something, anything, and then sharing it for as large a community of people as possible?

When I've been proud of something, you have undoubtably known it. I will e-mail it, post it, wear it, and live it. When I've got something, I come right out of hiding and make it happen. It's really, my only justification for choosing the degree I did, for spending so much time in creative writing classes, or for spending so much of my life pretending to be whatever I wanted to be in front of summer camp kids. 

I'm getting tired and I need to wrap this up.

One of my mood swings I've become famous for is my thunderous proclamations of egomaniac greatness immediately followed by prognostications of personal worthlessness (Much like this entire debacle I'm writing right here). Therein lies the me. I have the swagger and the bravado of an individual that can make creativity a living but only after I've been creative. To this point in my journey I have yet to have the sheer guts it takes to choose what I'm going to make, be it books, websites, or television, believe that that is what I'm destined to do and then make it happen. I don't know how to ask for permission and I certainly can't strike forward without it. 

I only know how to excel where I've been asked to. 

Since I've left camp nothing has wanted me.

So I hide.