Oh crushing sinking irrational guilt. Fuck you. For so many years you’ve been my master, I’ve been your slave. You’ve taken all from me. Lost in. Wracked by. Full of. And in return? Only pain. Perhaps it’s the curse of the creative? Created to haunt us all. The fakers, the scammers, the dreamers, who are getting away with it, waiting to be found out. Wanting to be found out. So we can go back to flipping shelves and stacking burgers in tiny towns full of big people with small minds. Trapped. Home. And as the clock ticks so the cycle of guilt circles. A reminder to do better. To be better. To try harder.
I was never meant to be a designer. Always wanted to be a designer. The first to go to uni. The only. Left my friends behind. Crossed the tracks. Opened my eyes. Shed my skin. Never looked back. Travelled the world. Made money. Never had it. Couldn’t save it. Wasted all of it. Wasted all of the time. Too much. Too soon. Out of control. In total control. The captain of my own pirate ship. One of a kind. The life of the party. The kind where only everyone else gets to go home.
Guilt fans the flame. Forcing me forward. So afraid of failure is not an option. Can’t go back. Must keep moving. Kicking. Screaming. Fucking. Punching. No faith in my talent. Only in the fight for not being found out. The full twelve rounds. The super bantamweight of branding. With a 100lb arm but no knockout punch. That would be too easy. Too simple. This fight is going the distance. All the way. It won’t be televised. It’s not box office but hidden. Every day. The fight for acceptance. From others. From myself. Here there will be no unanimous decision. No adulation. It’s down to the wire. The Scorecards are in. And the winner is...
Guilt. More than a word. A feeling. Gnawing. I should change. I can’t change. Don’t want to. Better to live with it than lose my soul. A choice. Be crushed by it. Or driven from it. From small streets to big lights in the big city with big dreams of big ideas. Where it becomes harder to remember the boy you once were. From the town you once lived. Where happiness was unimportant.
Then something snaps. The constant gnawing subsides. Age brings calm. The fire that’s always raged turns to embers. I see clearly. Think calmly. The animal. Wounded. The need to prove no longer there. In return there's balance. Opportunity. Hope. And the most beautiful of all things. Acceptance.
Through it all I've loved, I've laughed and cried. I've had my share of losing. Regrets? Too few to mention. But more than this pain and mayhem. Much more than all of this. I did it my way.