"I have to think of something before I die."

That's the first sentence of my first Little Notebook. Summer, 1995.

So many things turned around that summer ten years ago, starting with the most important: I met my shrink, Judith, the person who would save my life. Within weeks of working with her, I had dumped a terrible boyfriend and a worse best friend, told my mom I couldn't be available to her twice a month any more, quit my lifelong habit of sucking my thumb after twenty-five shame-filled years, and started keeping a Little Notebook, in which I decided to write only the truth.

Cleaning out the closets this weekend, I found three boxes of little notebooks from the past ten years. Here's the first entry of the first one:

I have to think of something before I die. I want to do the one good thing against futility. Today I could give up wanting. Buddhism and nihilism. Que sera, sera.

Forget it, I give up giving up. I'm always wanting something. Satisfaction is death. Maybe I'm afraid if I'm ever happy, something will go terribly wrong. I'm afraid none of this is original. I'm afraid nothing I do will even be important. Parks full of bodies, all dead.

Why have I always worried so much about death and meaning. I feel like I was a very smart child. I wish I had been given the opportunity to be great from an early age. What is great. Most everything is such crap, and the more popular it is the more meaningless crap it is.

I want to be important in a whole new way. Having nothing to do with recognition or ego. What is a good way to help people. What motivates politics. People are so ugly and their motives are so perverse. Not that I have anything against perversity per se I just think people don't know what they want.

I want to foster love and understanding. What a marshmallow platitude. I'm always putting myself down for no reason. There's nothing wrong with wanting good things for anonymous people, being more specific is probably a start. Can you only help individuals? Of course, very basic.

I'm in Washington Square Park wishing I could write a poem, the poem that would help. Poetry doesn't help, money helps. I know I don't believe that. What to do. Observe, observe, observe.

It is my new mission to lay back and observe. Put less of myself out there and listen more. Most of it is such garbage and nonsense. I'm not looking for somebody to bounce my anecdotes off, I don't want to sit around a trade compliments. I want a real lover and I'm prepared to wait.

Well, maybe not prepared, but now's the time. Now is the time to be alone. I bet I thrive. Intentions aren't enough but they're a good place to begin. Stop putting myself down. Stop abusing myself. Stop being afraid. Everything will be all right.

Comments

[Emilie]

Thanks for sharing that. A lot of wisdom there. And beautifully and purely worded.

[girlbomb]

Thanks for reading it. I know it's a little self-indulgent to post old journals, but I was struck by how much they remind me of exactly what I'm thinking these days.

[megan]

remember when i told you about how i thought that poetry was a connection, the poem you know you could have written, the from my head to your mouth thing? that's how this made me feel.

[brian]

i wrote this and i quite liked it
tho, my perception of it may change after some time
but before that happens
i thought i'd share it
and i thought it fit quite nicely with this little journal entry of yours

Happiness

is a state of mind.
and, when im not tired,
i really am happy.

heck, i guess even when i am tired, im happy too.

i do feel that im lacking something tho,
and depending on the person that i'm talking to
and depending on the context,
i let out a torrent of half-thought, generalized notions on my life
that are never quite as perceptive as i would want them to be

but nevertheless
when i can get out of the fog that is my mind.
i sit and i wonder
about the beauty that is

its funny
because
in my youth
i was obsessed with the macabre and the sullen
and i thought that i had surely put such silly concepts behind me
but every once in a while
i find them to float to the surface.

although i am now much more better equipped to dispatch such negativity
i find myself reminded of some silly song lyrics that go
". . . i miss the comfort in being sad"

i think it has to do with "romanticism."
i was a romantic.
and, i thought, there is something inherently tragic about romance
an aspect of divine suffering for one's love
of for any love~

suffering equated love to me in some strange sense

but now

i don't believe in that anymore

i don't know what i believe
and sometimes that bothers me.
but i'm ok with that.

overall
my life is a happy one
one that i want to live
and take advantage of.
i see it like this.
in front of me
are only opportunities
great ones and small ones
horrendous ones that i will fail with miserable grandeur
and still others that will shine and sparkle only to me
and that is more than what i deserve to ask for.

i don't believe myself to be a great
or smart or clever or handsome or indispensable or good or wanted or needed or ... and on and on ad naseum

but that doesn't bother me.

because
i believe, although sometimes with great difficulty and much skepticism,
that it is ok.

i am only who i am
and whoever that person is,
has every right to be who he is
not in spite of his failures nor lifted because of his achievements
but rather, including those attributes just mentioned,
for the mere fact that he is alive

because i am alive

this all sorta, somewhat, kinda, makes sense in my head

im happy to be alive
and where i'm at
and i know
that if i want to be elsewhere
i will go elsewhere

and if that place is not how i imagined it to be
i will be ready to move on

i know that people are incredibly resilient.
and in some small way
i acknowledge that in myself.

what?

exactly.

[Stana]

This makes me want to start journaling.

[Janice]

Brian, that's beautiful!

And Stana, you should!

[brian]

really?
coming from you, i feel quite honored.
i mean, you're a legitimate AUTHOR!
heck, i was surprised when you became my facebook friend!

hahah

keep up your writing!
and i'll be sure to support you!

[mens health]

I am a big fan of postsecret.com. I agree with the fact that it gives people an outlet to express their feelings without backlash. Alot of people can relate to the problems on the site. It's really awesome that the creators of the site help the users with their problems.