How do you finish telling a story when you can only think fifteen seconds at a time? How do you create a narrative when three minutes of contemplation is exhausting? These are rhetorical questions when I’m lucky. Writers write, right? But what if writing, what if every thought, is embroiled? I have no third act, and I don’t know if I ever will. I can’t get past the conflict. The conflict defines how I live; it defines who I am right now, who I’ve been for a while. The conflict or nothing is how I feel.
I saw an old friend last night and he was in chains over how he felt about a relationship he was in. I felt like I was in a zoo, watching something that had no personal resonance. I told him I was the same way for a while, after the last time, but after what happened, I decided to turn it off, and so I did. With me, it’s always been all or nothing. And for six years now, I have chosen nothing. I have broken the alternative so many times that it might not be an option to go back. I can tell the story, but I can’t live it anymore. Too many things get broken.