The Entertained

My first post of 2013... at the end of May.

When I first started blogging ten years ago, I averaged half a million words a year. Seriously.

Now I am barely doing anything.

When I was single, I used to write with a pen, by hand, in a spiral notebook. Recently I found my notebooks again, and I stacked them on a shelf in the closet. I filled 31 notebooks easily, and that's not counting the ones I gave away, lost, destroyed, or misplaced. Also not counting the ones devoted to my endless nameless novel, which will probably never see the light of day because, frankly, I'm sick of writing it.

I think I wrote so much that this long period of inactivity is the logical result. I wrote until I could no longer write.

This is a problem, seeing as I still want to write. Being sick of it doesn't mean that I don't want to keep doing it. It just means I don't like the things I write, like I have nothing meaningful to say that hasn't already been said by others.

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Working in a bookstore adds to this malaise. Every day I see the works of others, and it fills me with envy and anger. Some of it is utter trash, useless and trivial. But those works do not bother me because I feel like I am no better than they are. Maybe a little jealousy creeps in when I think that these authors whom are no better than me are famous and have money. But it doesn't bother me as much as the works of true genius that move readers to laughter and tears with the wizardry or words and lyrical imagery. There's no denying that these authors deserve the fame, the accolades, the legendary status... and that hurts me the most, because I have always felt like I could be in the elite club.

But the fact that I have not done anything to match their efforts is what really bothers me. I don't mind being a father, a husband, a Midwesterner. But I haven't done anything creative in the time I've been those things, and coupled with that feeling is a sense of disgust with the people around me. I am no longer surrounded by artists, writers, painters, musicians, actors. Instead I am surrounded by watchers, viewers, readers, listeners, appreciators.

And what's more, they are not entertained by me, because I am no longer entertaining. I am a part of them; I am of The Entertained.  

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My son is precious.

He doesn't care that I aspire to be creative. He just wants me to be Daddy, the one who play-wrestles on the bed, the one who makes up games and teaches him things, the one who gets him dressed in the morning and makes him something to eat and puts on his favorite DVD and kisses him goodnight and tucks him in.

Right now he is tugging at my shorts, telling me he wants me to play with him. I tell him I'm almost done. He tells me he wants me to be done now, and he rests his adorable head on my shoulder.

How can I resist that?

Maybe right now I am not ready or able to do what I want to do. But this post is proof that I am chomping at the bit, and the doldrums of docile Midwestern suburbia and Americana are fast upon me. I know that at some point I will be able to unleash what talents I have to offer, but until then I have a son who needs me to be his father.

Hell, he can't even read. What does it matter to him if I am a writer?

Maybe someday it will matter... but for now I am done.

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