It's 5:30 am, and I'm unable to sleep. Writing my Memoir Of A Nobody is turning out to be quite a disturbing task. Writing stirs up memories in me that won't go away and let me sleep. Several nights recently sleeplessness has overwhelmed me. It's a good thing I don't write every day or I'd be in awful shape. My life contains many disturbing events, many psychologically terrifying periods. Fortunately, I don't believe I normally realize what I've been through. I have so many tales to tell and many psychological insights that I've gotten from them and through counseling and reading in psychology, specially in evolutionary psychology. I truly have something to offer about the process of recovery from many emotional difficulties to find happiness and love. I spent four hours today writing and rewriting four paragraphs, trying to get the facts and feelings down as they truly happened. I'm writing about my experiences as a 19 year old with prostitutes in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In many ways those experiences foreshadowed the troubles I would later experience with all women. I've rewritten the opening sentences below too many times already.
1. Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
I wonder if
writing this memoir will be the death of me? Lit by a computer monitor, here I
sit, age 81, at 1:52 am, naked except for white briefs, bent over a computer
keyboard, driven out of bed by a restless memory to begin….
Somewhere within me
my stepmother’s words are indelibly inscribed: “You’re selfish. You’re not like
your father at all. You’re not a Thomas.”
I’ve begun many times in 81
years to write this memoir, and every time I begin, I tell myself memoir
writing is the most selfish task a
person can try. I immediately begin to quibble with myself....
It's now 6:15 am as I finish this entry and still no sleep....
Now
2:43 pm as I add this entry. My lack of sleep has nothing to do with guilt. I'm long past
that, but my mind just goes hyperactive sometimes. Thoughts run riot.
