When it becomes dysfunctional.

It’s odd how a stranger’s journey can show you your own.

It’s also not surprising, really, when I stop to think about it.

When you’ve lived a life filled with reading other people’s tales – stories both imaginative and those based on the bitter and blithely thing named “real life” – it’s not so surprising to realize that the lessons you’ve had to learn are best described through someone else’s voice.

And when you’re a writer of sorts, you create your own journeys. Your own interpretation of life, filtered through a fictional lens.

Now, you might think these paths would light those dark pathways in your own mind. Don’t we snake through our conscious and subconscious when we mine for characters and plot? Shouldn’t our heroes and heroines be manifestations of our own growth as a human being?

As it turns out, not always.

One of my greatest struggles – both as a flawed human being and as an even more flawed writer – has always been to connect what’s really going on deep down in that place we all have. The dark place... and also one filled with bright things.

This is the sacred place. The place where we protect ourselves as best as we can. By tapping into it, we risk the hurt and inevitable pain that comes when someone alien comes tramping through, mindless of the underbrush and the delicate things that have found a safe haven.

You can be a reasonably good writer without violating that space. Without dipping into its lush, easily-broken world.

But the writing never seems to ring true somehow. There’s always a disconnection. Someone has tried to lightly seam together the soul to the body.

And as much as you try to hide them, the stitches always show.

Here’s my confession: Even now as I’ve written this, I didn’t type the words “the sacred space” the first time round.

What I wrote was, “This is the scared place.”

It could have been a typo.

It wasn’t.

And it is the scared place. Scared of being discovered. Of being changed. Of being exposed to elements that could destroy it, or turn it into something terrible.

Having sat through a movie that even now I’m embarrassed to admit had the emotional impact of a ballistic missile on my psyche (not so surprising given that I changed my career trajectory after watching 13 Going On 30 – true story), I’ve been forced to deal with lessons I have been fighting to learn, without even knowing what they are.

Stories of divorce and separation and healing... and yet somewhere, this all translated into some oddball little form of clarity.

I have made mistakes. Lots of them.

People have been hurt. I’ve been hurt.

And not once have I ever been able to thread together the nameless narrative that brought my life together. The mistakes I have made, both personal and professional.

The missteps.

Every single screwed-up, fucked-up and completely dumb and asinine thing I’ve done.

I have accepted them. I have learned from (some) of them. And I’ve moved on. Mostly.

But not one single, goddamn time did I ever forgive myself for making them.

Not once.

Writing – as with all relationships, like the ones we have with each other, or really anything we love – is about trust.

And I haven’t been kind to my writing. I haven’t been able to trust it, to allow it to run its natural course. I’ve stifled and oppressed this poor creature, bending it to my will – simply because I couldn’t trust it enough to roam free.

It’s a broken relationship right now. We both want to make it work. It’s been asking for very little, except for my time and patience. And I, like any person caught up in a souring relationship, have only held on harder.

I have blighted it.

And so, after some time apart, I’ve come back to the negotiating table. I’m not ready to say goodbye when we’ve barely begun.
Not yet.

I ask for forgiveness of my little craft.

And more importantly, I forgive myself for being the agent of its near-destruction. Of controlling and denying it. Of committing to the wrong duties, and the wrong priorities.


It won’t be easy. We’ll have to take it slow.

But I’m ready to travel now.

And so, my friend, take a deep breath. Take my hand.

Let us away.