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Description
Sometimes I just want to sit down and give up. To stop trying, because on those days I feel pretty certain I fuck up far, far more than I succeed. Rationally, when I’m calm – untired, objective, observant – I know that’s not the case. Or, at least, I hope with some educated foundations that it is not.

I can’t, though. When I mean to declare it…. I remember.

When I was younger, I promised that I would keep trying. At the time, I was in the throes of depression – I had not so long ago moved past a stage where my only true desire was to die. But I remember that time, I remember it clearly.

There I am, younger, sitting in bed. I’m typing on the laptop, making that promise. I look like myself – and I am. I am younger; I don’t have the beard and mustache I often grow in a couple of days now, my face is ever so slightly closer to that of a child’s, I am shorter. The face of this ghost, of my past self who still watches so intently from within, is tired. It is pale, dark circles under the eyes.

But my past self is not so unintelligent as I often feel it. His effort and his promises – MY effort and promises – were so difficult to obtain because they could not be made in a blur, to then be regretted and rendered unreal. They would not be made as lies, and they would never be broken.

There is a glimmer in the eye of my past self. He smiles, in spite of his complexion, his sorrow, his lack of sleep. And he promises to keep trying.

I remember that day. I remember being him. And, when I want to give up, I can almost feel him turn to meet my gaze, some four years later.

There are many times I want nothing more than to discipline sense into my past self. But times like this, I realize that I always had some degree of wisdom. I would not commit to what was merely a blur; I would not risk making any promise surreal or even unreal. And I would never lie.

The fights with me were always so long, I think, because I needed to break through that surreal blur, that obscuring veil of despair. But, in retrospect, I am glad. It is a lucidity that I respect even now.

Somewhere in the past, I smile. And somewhere in the present, it feels as if I knew, all along, that I would fight this battle.

Description
Sometimes I just want to sit down and give up. To stop trying, because on those days I feel pretty certain I fuck up far, far more than I succeed. Rationally, when I’m calm – untired, objective, observant – I know that’s not the case. Or, at least, I hope with some educated foundations that it is not.

I can’t, though. When I mean to declare it…. I remember.

When I was younger, I promised that I would keep trying. At the time, I was in the throes of depression – I had not so long ago moved past a stage where my only true desire was to die. But I remember that time, I remember it clearly.

There I am, younger, sitting in bed. I’m typing on the laptop, making that promise. I look like myself – and I am. I am younger; I don’t have the beard and mustache I often grow in a couple of days now, my face is ever so slightly closer to that of a child’s, I am shorter. The face of this ghost, of my past self who still watches so intently from within, is tired. It is pale, dark circles under the eyes.

But my past self is not so unintelligent as I often feel it. His effort and his promises – MY effort and promises – were so difficult to obtain because they could not be made in a blur, to then be regretted and rendered unreal. They would not be made as lies, and they would never be broken.

There is a glimmer in the eye of my past self. He smiles, in spite of his complexion, his sorrow, his lack of sleep. And he promises to keep trying.

I remember that day. I remember being him. And, when I want to give up, I can almost feel him turn to meet my gaze, some four years later.

There are many times I want nothing more than to discipline sense into my past self. But times like this, I realize that I always had some degree of wisdom. I would not commit to what was merely a blur; I would not risk making any promise surreal or even unreal. And I would never lie.

The fights with me were always so long, I think, because I needed to break through that surreal blur, that obscuring veil of despair. But, in retrospect, I am glad. It is a lucidity that I respect even now.

Somewhere in the past, I smile. And somewhere in the present, it feels as if I knew, all along, that I would fight this battle.