I have no conscious memory of when books transformed from objects on which to drool into the tools enabling me to forge a path through the bizarre and byzantine years of my time on this planet. Just as I devoured all of the food on my plate did I consume increasingly complex chronicles, reveling in and learning from the insights, the joys, the despondencies, all of the beautiful and harrowing stories found between the covers of the novels that were my constant companion. Life being circular, it was not long before I was again drooling on books, me finally falling fast asleep after hours of reading post-bedtime, a routine that continues to the present day.
Awaking from dreams fueled by my fictional forays, it is sometimes challenging to separate the happenings in slumber world from the events transpiring in my conscious life. Bleeding at the edges, these narratives coalesce into the cinema that plays in my mind, my personal repository of hopes and fears, of action and repose. At the center of this sensory maelstrom I sit, equal parts director and viewer, author and reader, conductor and listener. In one sense, I am in control, in another I am subject – one role I find more natural, the other requires a level of acceptance of reality, an outcome I find distasteful.
From the writers that were and are my idols I learned to create escapes, to craft adventures, to impart wisdom, to construct the worlds that were rooted in my imagination as such was influenced by my quotidian existence. The power — to dictate the course of events, to mine the depths of my own psychology to determine character motivations, to simply just make things up – was intoxicating and, as power can be, distorting.
When one can postulate an ideal world, can manifest story arcs that lead to a satisfying conclusion, can delve off into an ether that has no relation to lived experience, it can be hard to come back into the fold of normalcy. Believing fiercely in self-determination, I do not think that my life’s story has yet been written, I am not entrusting the trajectory of my life to an outside source, I am not waiting for what has allegedly been inscribed to transpire. I am the author of my own existence and, being a fastidious writer, I want each proverbial comma to appear in the right place, I want the denouement to happen when I choose it to be so.
Of course, as with not a small amount of my desires and beliefs, my goals in this regard are highly unrealistic. No matter how finely I craft my own narrative, it is subject to outside forces that I can neither anticipate nor control. Devastating illnesses, tragic accidents, bad timing, horrible decisions, all of these have subverted my desired path through this life. I want a strong, smart, caring partner on whom I can unquestionably rely, a person who is not dependent on me for their well-being, but who is enriched by my presence in their life nonetheless. She is a character that I can easily conjure from my keyboard, but a woman with whom I have yet to connect on this side of the screen.
Yes, I do not want my life to follow a script – that would be horribly boring. Yes, some of the greatest joys with which I have been blessed have been massive surprises. Yes, I am touched most deeply by serendipity, that mysterious force that can transform small moments into momentous ones. But – it is just really hard, especially for someone as patience-challenged as me, to wait interminably for the meet-cute that I envision in my mind. The gap between my fictional musings and the often-lonely life that I am leading continues to be maddeningly wide and no amount of writing or willing will fix that – it will happen when it happens and I have to be OK with that. I can influence my outcome, but I cannot fully author it and that disconnect is both what keeps me motivated and troubles my sanity. Still, I will not be dissuaded, I will keep turning the pages with optimism in my brain and hope in my heart.