Memento

One recent morning I woke up and realized that I was now a shittier version of a Past Me. The good news was that I finally woke up after days in my waking dream. The bad news was that I was now a shittier version of a Past Me.

I decided to write about it. The even worse news is that a week later, I hadn’t finished. That’s the kind of thing that Way Shittier Past Mes did all the time. Then they got better. Then they got worse again. And then they turned into me. I’m not the shittiest I have ever been. But I’m shitty enough.

When I started writing this, I had remembered having written about dying and being reborn every day. I remembered thinking it was the best thing that I’d ever written. I remembered that I’d decided to spend each day so that the me that would be born on the following day would be better than the me that had cashed it in on that day. Or something like that.

And then I forgot.

Completely.

Forgot.

WTF

I had been living my life as though that realization—the realization that I had decided defined the purpose of my life—to make a better Future Me—had never happened. Instead, I made shittier Future Me’s. Until today.

But WTF!

I had forgotten what I had decided was my reason for existence.

I had forgotten what I had identified as one of the most important things I had learned.

So I started writing this blog post. And now I realize that I’d somehow forgotten how to get blog posts written and done and out. Like a Shitty Past Me.

Today I decided to finish it. But I was still a shitty person and changed my mind, and I decided to write something else. And nine hours later I hadn’t finished it. And it was too long. So I spent time cutting it down to size and sent it to someone because I’d spent the whole fucking day writing.

And that was a mistake because then I got into a discussion and now I can’t sleep.

And now I’ve got a bunch of shitty consequences to deal with and shitty decisions to make. I’m not going to get up at 5:30 and start my day the way I like to. And I had to make some shitty decisions:

1. I could lie in bed resenting the fact that I can’t sleep. (Which I tried, briefly. It sucked.)

2. I could get up and watch a video or read some shit on the web until I was tired enough to sleep. (Which I tried, briefly. It sucked)

3. I could do something useful which I am doing. And I’m doing it even though I’m tired, and I feel that life is unfair because I was trying to do something good and it turned to shit, and that was why I could not sleep. Wah!

But was I trying to do something good? Or was I being self-indulgent? The answer is: self-indulgent. Maybe I was trying to do something good, but I was doing it in a self-indulgent way. And now I have to deal with the consequences.

Maybe I can try to go to sleep now, but not until I finish this.

I need to finish this post as my first attempt at redemption.

And I need to get my shit together.

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