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An Open Letter To The Voices In My Head
The smart people in the room have a name for you. They call you The Resistance because they’ve all read The War of Art and it sounds impressive. To me, The Resistance is what you call the unnamed forces working against you. You can’t be The Resistance. You all have names. I’ve known each one of you for years because one of you is constantly in my ear telling me why I can’t do something. That indictment lays squarely at your feet. My failing is that I have ended up listening and acquiescing to your creeping barrage of negativity. So it is that I have reached the age of 49 and my dream of a creative career has eluded me.
Until now. I’ve listened to you long enough, and I don’t want to listen to you anymore. I should be angry at having wasted so many years, but I’m not. The only feeling I have right now is a desire to render you helpless and unable to stop me any longer and to do that I have to name you.
The jig is up. I know exactly who and what you are.
You’re the voice of my father, who was so dissatisfied with how his life turned out he missed no opportunity to take it out on anyone else. Who never turned up for sporting events or school plays. Who used the Navy as an excuse for not being there when there were plenty of Navy families here in Virginia Beach who never seemed to have that problem. Who let his temper get the better of him more often than not and verbally and mentally abuse everyone around him. Who took every opportunity to tell me that I was a hippie loser for wanting to be creative.
How did that affect me? I tried to follow in your footsteps and failed. I ended up getting a job in an industry I am beginning to loathe as much as you loathed what you did. I’ve done this since 1990, and while it’s kept food on the table and a roof over my family’s head, it’s made me as miserable as your job in the Navy and after made you. Don’t worry, though. You are not the only one to blame.
You are also the voice of the Young Misfit that just wanted to fit in somewhere and was scared to do anything so far out of the ordinary as to be noticed. Never stood out, because standing out meant ridicule. Because of his diminutive size, gender-bending name, and physical problems that were a disability at a young age. Standing out meant rejection, humiliation, and…
