How Do You Make Yourself a Central Character When You Don't Like Yourself?
I’m still in bed because I got up early and jumped into the pool under the full moon, came into the house, showered, and then went back into the pool because my body wanted more water moon.
Now I can’t get warm, but it was so worth it. Jonathan Richmond is singing Roadrunner and I get to write:
Roadrunner, roadrunner
Going faster miles an hour
Gonna drive past the Stop & Shop
With the radio on
I'm in love with Massachusetts
And the neon when it's cold outside
And the highway when it's late at night
Got the radio on
I'm like the roadrunner
All right
I'm in love with modern moonlight
128 when it's dark outside
I'm in love with Massachusetts
I'm in love with the radio on
It helps me from being alone late at night
It helps me from being lonely late at night
I don't feel so bad now in the car
Don't feel so alone, got the radio on
Like the roadrunner, that's right
Said welcome to the spirit of 1956
Patient in the bushes next to '57
The highway is your girlfriend as you go by quick
Suburban trees, suburban speed
And it smells like heaven
The highway is your girlfriend.
How hot is that?
I was just on a call with someone who is writing her memoir, and she keeps doing everything but write directly about herself. It’s like going to an Adele concert, and having Adele hand the microphone to her mother. I’m at an Adele concert! I was to hear her! Not her mother! Not her neighbor!
One burden of being under the spotlight is the fear of getting burned. People will see you! They will judge! The trick is to judge yourself before they can, beat them to the punch and judge the shit out of yourself before anyone can get to you. That way it doesn't matter how much others hate you because you hate you more! You win! You are safe!!
But you are so beaten up.
Guess what happened this morning! I YELLED at my client! I told her to fucking knock it off.
We were both laughing, and we both knew I meant it, and we both knew it’s what she most wanted to hear.
Being in the spotlight isn’t a stage thing, really—when you are writing and casting yourself as the central character it is you living under the sun, living as a person is supposed to live, warmed and held.
When you don’t like yourself but you want to write about yourself, you might as well fall in love. Why not? Who cares? You get all excited when you see a dirty penny face up on the ground because you know it’s going to bring you good luck. Imagine what finding yourself will bring you.
Understand there is something in your brain that has made a mistake: the part that wants you to hate yourself is a broken, hurting part of your brain, and you can live with it and still not let it be the boss of you. Know that on the other side of self-hatred is love. Just know it’s there because no baby beats itself to death at birth because it hates itself so much. Self-hate is not natural. It’s a misunderstanding. Write about writing with self-hate. Make it part of the story—give it voice, but also be really curious about all the love that’s stored behind the confused hate.
Write towards truth.
Truth never ends in hate.
It ends in heartbreak, maybe, in grief, in confusion, but all that eventually runs off into love.
Into you.
