So what have you been doing with your life? or Why I write.

: So what have you been doing with your life? or Why I write.

December 17, 2007 by Brad
Filed under: WTF?

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I ran across an old friend today and that was the question that came up and couldn’t be avoided once it was asked. As someone who was headed for greatest, I tend to shy away from the question quite a bit these days when asked, especially by people who knew me when. It is hard to say, “I dropped out of college, made and lost more money than I care to discuss, got married, had a son, got hurt, became destitute, and am not living in mediocrity and working on a writing career.” When asked I focused on the most relevant these days, I am stay at home dad in the middle of writing three novels and editing two I wrote over the last two years. The answer of “I always thought you would be a good dad”, surprised me. As it turns out I might just be in a better position and better for sticking with it than many people I used to know are in. After 10 years of marriage to a person I originally met on ISCA I can say that I am doing far better in the marriage pool than most of the people I knew way back. Other than the one gay guy I knew in high school and the lesbian couple I met my first year of college, I hold the record for being with the same person this long. I was surprised to hear that too. I actually almost felt good about myself.

Am I where I planned to be in my life when I dropped out of college for Silicon Valley Success? Hell No! I am stuck in Ohio with a foot of snow on my driveway, living hand to mouth, scrounging until the next paycheck and hoping Katy makes enough and nothing goes seriously wrong with our delicate financial situation. So why do I keep doing it? I need to. The last time I went back to work and my body gave out on me I vowed that I wouldn’t go through it again. When your knees swell up bigger around than your thighs, you get blinding headaches that make you puke, and you find yourself just too depressed to care about living or dying and you will take either so long as it doesn’t require any energy to do it, you know if you ever get right again you will never do this to yourself again. I will go back to school one day, I will likely find a real job that has insurance and doesn’t require me to abuse my body, I will show my son that he can do it if his old man can do it. Maybe I should join him his freshman year of college to show him the ins and outs of picking of girls there, I used to be pretty good at that. Strike that I am looking across the room to Katy who has an angry look on her face like she knows what I am typing. For now though, I write. Maybe this will be the break I need to get back some of my lost self worth, but for now I write because when I sit down to do it I know it is what I was born to do…

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