There are some things I probably should be proud to have tried and seen and accomplished in life. Yet as it is now, the memories of these precious few experiences are going up in smoke like brittle old film in an antique projector. The picture starts out all blurry at first because the film is loose and then it gets caught and sticks on a single frame, which catches on fire from the concentrated heat of the projector’s lamp. It burns up right there, before my eyes.
Somehow, instead of preserving memories of my prouder moments, the shitty projectionist in my head operating that piece of crap projector… has gathered and spliced together just about every possible one of my least proud moments. The kinds of stuff I know full well most people would easily be able to leave on the cutting room floor and never think about again becomes exhibit A, B, C, D, etc… that I am not a good enough person, and no matter how good a person I try to become, it will never fix all my fuck ups from before.
I try to tell myself most of those fuck ups are incredibly minor in the grand scheme of things, but there are important ways in which they still matter. In some cases, they’re moments some circles of people might very well remember me by. In others, they’re things I have to explain to potential employers. I try to console myself that at least I’ve never hurt anybody, but I’m not even sure if that’s true. I’d only spoken to him a few times but there was a young man I worked with, maybe about 10 years ago, who I heard may have taken his own life. If I knew back then what I do today about mental illness, I might have been able to become a good friend to him. Instead, being young and stupid, I was the opposite; willing to be a casual work buddy at first, but then afraid of his obviously growing desperation, and appalled by the poor quality of a creative writing sample he opened up enough to share with me.
It was something I could have been more tactful about at the time. Sometimes I wonder if– if he was alive and if I still knew him– he might be able to understand how I’ve come to feel about life over the last year or so. I don’t know what else he was going through, but I certainly know I didn’t help him when I could have. Sometimes I think that this was the one of the rare times in life I had a shot of actually being of real use to anyone. Maybe I couldn’t have saved the guy, but I could have been a helpful, positive force at the very least. Instead, if I made any impact at all, it was surely negative.
I didn’t know any better at the time but I know very well now just how much it hurts not to have anyone around who is willing to even try to understand what you’re going through, while going through a difficult time. I understand now how it feels not to have anyone close to you who is willing to accept you for who you are. I also know what it is to be silenced and exploited by people who are supposed to protect and care for you. Could any of these have been along the lines of what his pain was about? Of all the choices that I would like to change in my past (and there are many), before the ones that led to people possibly looking down on me, or even the ones that make it hard for me to switch career tracks, the one thing I’d change the most is to have made a positive impact on this one human being who now reminds me so much of who I’ve become.
I wish I’d been the supportive person to him then that I don’t seem to be able to find in my life now.