Writing has been my greatest passion since I was in the second grade. It is something I have done for a long time, but I stopped for a while when my life came to a standstill in 2020. The world around me slipped into chaos as the people I knew disappeared into caves of shelter-in-place. Social interaction happened through virtual meetings or from six feet away with the protection of a mask. With all the time in the world holed up alone inside my house, one might think I spent that time busy honing my craft.
I did not.
My coping mechanism for dealing with difficult emotions is distracting. I cannot feel depression if I keep myself busy. Anxiety seems to settle when I drown it out with weed and video games. I did everything I could to escape from the long list of problems in my life except for the thing I should have done: confront them.
I find it easiest to express myself through written word. Trying to talk to people in this day and age has become difficult and impractical. Have you ever noticed how often our friends have their noses buried in their smart phones when you are hanging out? How about the tendency they have to not listen but instead only wait for their turn to speak? But if someone takes the time to read what you have written, you have their undivided attention, which is a treasure I could never adequately articulate with words. You never doubt they care when they cannot interrupt. Moreover, what you have to say is eternalized; even if no one reads what I write today, someone eons in the future might.
Perhaps then I will be understood. Perhaps then I will be heard.
When I started this blog years ago, I called it “Thirty Life Crisis” with the intention of keeping record of my thirties in an artistic way others might enjoy. I chose “Crisis” because our society makes a big deal about turning thirty, as if it is a milestone of getting older and that, for some strange reason, is a bad thing. My posts were cutesy topics like the advent of gray hair and wrinkles, or a maturing taste in music or food. The “crisis” was purely existential.
But I learned the hard way all too well what a real crisis feels like.
My life changed forever on August 28th, 2020, and I still live in the shadow of the catastrophe that befell me on that day. I am not ready to disclose details yet, but I promise one day I will tell my story. I might not be ready because the story is still ongoing; it is not over yet and it will not for a long time. I suppose the silver lining here is that is the way stories work: they never end.
I have lived my life silent and in the shadows for long enough, however. It is time to step into the light and shout the truth from the mountaintops. The truth, as the saying goes, will set you free, and freedom, now more than ever, is what my soul craves.
So, rather than share a list of New Year’s resolutions and one tedious update after another about the challenge of following through on those goals, I hope instead to do something meaningful in the best way I know how. Rather than regurgitate it all at once, I will tell my story in parts. And unlike the fiction I have written in the past, I will instead expose my real-life experience to be weighed and measured.
Whether you read this while it is current, or look into the past to witness all I have endured, I want to say thank you for taking your time to listen.
Thank you,
Caleb J Hicks