The Daily Breaker: Dateline 2-5-2019
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“A writer’s voice is not character alone, it is not style alone; it is far more. A writer’s voice line the stroke of an artist’s brush- is the thumbprint of her whole person- her idea, wit, humor, passions, rhythms.”
Good Morning Crickets!!! It feels good to be back at the old blog. That said, I’m still feeling a little rusty since, for the past week, the only writing that I’ve done has been via social media posts after actively avoiding writing any long format content, including long-winded emails to friends. It’s crazy how long one week can feel when taking a break from a routine that one’s been committed to for years. Aside from last week, I could tell you the last time I haven’t written at least five pages of some sort of content throughout a typical day.
As I was saying yesterday, after about a quarter of a decade of training, around Thanksgiving, I felt like I finally found my true writer’s voice. Again, I think this voice came to light when, for the first time since I started TheWickerBreaker.com, I managed to merge the storytelling style that I developed through decades of writing screenplays with the stream of conscious thought spewing technique that I honed while working on this blog.
I left off yesterday on Christmas Eve where I was starting to get anxious over how I could manage my time to take on all four challenges that I had laid out for this upcoming year. I knew I had the time because I recently lost my day job. Once again, the lack of a livable income was the main hurdle to get over. Writing-wise, I’ve always been confident that I’d manage to fit in the time for my personal projects.
Keep in mind, on Christmas Eve, though I was hopeful for my writing future, I was still a shut-in who just wanted to hide because I already felt invisible as my oldest sister and her family slept as a group in the master bedroom to fulfill their annual tradition. My youngest sister had her son in one of the guest room, while my mom and other younger sister slept in one of my nephew's available rooms that was free since he was sleeping with the family.
Meanwhile, I was stuck on a couch with the dog, feeling lucky that we were both allowed to sleep inside for the holiday. Granted, I’ve been an outsider for so long that I would have probably felt more uncomfortable being invited than ignored. Since I wasn’t in my own space, I didn’t have my medical marijuana to help me get to sleep, so I spent most of the night scrolling through social media, keeping in mind, at this time, I had muted everyone that I know and was only following strangers.
I would share random thoughts an images on Facebook from time to time just to let people know that I was still alive but for the most part I had given up on the platform. If I didn’t need an account to have The Wicker Breaker Facebook page, I probably would have deleted my personal account years ago. As for Twitter, I would only share links to my post, but was starting to chat with a few SNL fans who have found and like my SNL reviews. Other than that, I was pretty inactive at this time, but I had nothing to do and was bored.
A couple of days before Christmas, I archive all my Facebook posts to a PDF with the plan to slowly delete everything from my past since I was trying to kill my memories, ala Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Since I was bored and couldn’t sleep, I figured why not initiate the vanishing act, and just started to delete all my posts.
At first, I was even deleting the funny posts that I was proud of because I wanted it all to be gone since I feel like my depression in memory-based, and I just wanted a fresh start. After a while, I realized that I missed the days when social media used to be fun because I used to use the medium to build a bit of a narrative without constantly worrying about having to defend myself, or tell anyone else how they should interpret their own world.
I saw first hand how it was politics that killed all my fun, going back to Obama’s run for his second term. Though I did like his stance on many social issues, I didn’t see enough progress when it comes to the environment, war, and corporate greed. This led me to make a joke where I pointed out how many people say, “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain,” and promised that I would take this adage literally and not vote with the promise that I also wouldn’t complain, if others would just leave me alone when it comes to their political opinion.
Well, this led to a flood of people telling me how important my vote was until I told them fine, then I will vote for a third party candidate where I was then told how my oh so important vote was being wasted on a hopeless cause. I didn’t even joke that I would vote Republican, but I could only imagine the outrage that would have brought from the voting is important promoters who only give a shit when they think you’re voting their way. It all seemed counterproductive to me, but the arguments led me to lose even more of my sense of humor.
Once I realized that this simple joke was the turning point that led to my midlife meltdown, I started to think about my life before I felt the constant need to defend myself. This was when I implemented Bonsai Tree maintenance techniques and started to act more like a curator while combing through my old posts. By the time I was done, all the ugliness was gone, and I was very proud of my personal Facebook page.
The plan was to leave the page in this curated state and then simply walk away, but I was going to keep that a secret until New Year’s Day. I did the same thing with Twitter, getting rid of anything political or ranty in any way. During this cleaning process, I really started to miss being me from the old days, back when I still had fun without continually feeling like I was being judged by the ones who I loved.
In general, I’m a pretty polarizing person because of my introverted ways where I can come across as full of myself when I’m being shy because when juxtaposed with the silly side that shows when I’m actually comfortable. I don’t spread my attention evenly so I can easily see how a person can see me yucking it up with others only to wall myself off whenever they walk by can come across as me being unaccepting of them. I also have an unhealthy way of permanently ghosting even the closest of friends when relationships start to turn dry.
With all of my ugliness off social media, I really started to miss my old life, but I still knew there was no going back in time. By the time morning hit, my Christmas goal was to isolate myself, even more, to make it even easier to stick to the new fourteen-year goal that was still in development. I was feeling extremely hopeful about my writing future, but I was still hopeless when it came to my personal life.
That said, having a new obtainable life goal did put me in a much better mood but I, at the time I had no idea as to what was to come on New Year’s Eve. With that, I think I’m done for today. You’ll have to wait for tomorrow’s post to see how this story develops. Until then, it’s now time for me to sign off by saying, good day and good luck to you and all of your projects.
Talk to you soon.
Sincerely,
The Wicker Breaker
