I've been doing some excavation. I've been digging into my old works. Why would I do this? I can safely identify a couple of reasons. One: pure morbid curiosity. I've been writing since I was fourteen. I wanted to see if I could discern the original spark of talent that I was so convinced I had. Two: I wondered what it was like for me before I knew I had kidney disease. Was I a less serious person? Was I blissfully happy? I was diagnosed with kidney disease in 1986 at the age of nineteen. So, I had about a five year window when I was writing to see what my life was like before.
So what did I learn? It's complicated. I learned the Jon of twenty-five years ago is an absolute stranger. I have memories like anyone else, but they seem to be from someone else's life. I know that sounds odd, but I am convinced I wouldn't recognize my teen self on the street. As for this idea I may have been "happier" when I was younger or before I knew I had kidney disease, that didn't turn out to be true. Not at all. Look at the poem on the right. It is a fairly straightforward poem that chronicles what it's like to be in the process of growing up. In my case, way up. The language choices in the poem reveal that my internal processes were not without a flare of adolescent ennui and drama.
While this younger Jon may feel like a stranger, we have more in common than I thought. We both have a flair for the dramatic. We both write to help ourselves unscramble our feelings. We both feel like we are "in progress" and growing. Today, I am in the middle of this end stage renal disease to transplant journey. My pain is mostly physical rather than emotional. However the situation has given me the opportunity to imagine, much like when I was younger, what my life will be like "after." I feel much like I did when I was younger that I have the unique opportunity to invent myself (or in reality re-invent myself). I feel there are new possibilities ahead. I feel my life has untapped potential. However, there is one significant difference between me and my younger self. Thoughts of the future and what I might become made the young Jon quite anxious. Most surprisingly, today, I am hopeful.
I've posted a couple older pieces of work on my website http://www.joneseaman.com/. "Inheritance" is a poem and "Absolute Zero" is a short story. I wrote both over twenty years ago. I think these pieces show where I came from and how far I've travelled. Perhaps they even reveal that raw spark of mythical talent as well.
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1 comment:
this post has me thinking about the nature of real odysseys - ones laden with trials, demons, monsters, and challenges - and like all mythologies, suggesting promises of redemption, hope, and ultimately, happiness (or at the very least, a form of peace). i think that our younger selves just burn too hot with romantic delusions of pain on the surface, while going to bed every night with a profound sense of immortality to see us to the next morning... i guess the older we get the more we learn to see the kid in our past as just that, a kid.
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