S. SaDiablo said:
Shatna: Funny, witty and very talented (yes, I heard the TK radio
). Also someone I'd like to get to know better.
Well, ain't I blushing six shades of purple. Thank you, that's very flattering - I figured maybe four people I know of even listened to that stuff.
As for getting to know me: I'm here!
S. SaDiablo said:
Truth it is, then.
What is the stupidest, craziest thing you have ever done and
do not regret?
Ah, well. The first thing that comes to mind is of course sexual in nature, but I think I'll tuck that one away for now - to go against type for one thing and because... well, it just needs to be a secret for a while longer.
My answer then may seem pretty mundane, even boring in fact. Also pretty damn lengthy. Stop reading here if you want, I won't be offended.
Twelve years ago - twelve! - I was 29, and at an absolute full-stop in my life. I had been hearing the grinding gears coming slowly to a halt for some time, but like turning up the radio so you don't hear the rattling noise in your car's engine, I simply turned up the volume on other, fairly pointless aspects of my life. Sex. Music gigs. Idiotic dalliances with idiotic people, most of them women. And so it took me some time to realize I was dyin' inside, literally in a spiritual (but not religious) sense. I lay awake late one night in April, listening to the rain spatter against the windows of my lonely, dead-quiet apartment and was for once completely honest with myself.
I had nothing. I had come to nothing. I had a job I didn't like, women who were no good for me, piled-up debts for ridiculous expenditures, and a soul that was rotting from the inside. And I also came to realize that no matter how much my friends and family loved me, they had come to see me in much the same way as I saw myself: aimless, penniless, achievement-less, absurd, and very very often quite unpleasant to be around.
So for once I listened to that inner voice I usually ignored but was the only one I should have ever trusted, and it was saying Get the Fuck Out. Out of Jersey, with its whitebread suburbs and office parks and big hair Shore lifestyle, out of the circle of friends and family who even though they loved me had pretty much given up on me and were now hemming me in, as if to make certain that never changed. (For which I take full responsibility, by the way; I was the one who taught them to see me that way.) I immediately announced to all of them that I was gonna Get the Fuck out, and they slapped me on the back and wished me well and didn't believe a word of it. After all, where was I gonna go? What was I gonna do? All alone, by myself, leave all that security and sameness behind?
Sometimes your friends can be your worst enemies.
Not only did I Get the Fuck Out even earlier than my set date; not only did I Get the Fuck Out and land a new job in a ridiculously easy fashion (and the next job even more ridiculously so), but I Got the Fuck Out in a way that breathed new life into every pore of my skin and every inch of my soul, immediately. It was like the end of "Groundhog Day", when Bill Murray is finally freed from the tortorous sameness he thought he'd been condemned to forever.
This was all crazy and stupid because I had absolutely no plan beyond Getting the Fuck Out, and I had no net because even if things got bad, going back was unthinkable. So I arrived where I am now, in one of the most interesting cities of the world, and I can look back at my thirties and know they were a decade of joy and achievement and possibilities I never knew could exist. Crazy and stupid, because sometimes saving your own life means stepping off that precipice and into the void, not knowing where or even if you will land. And when you're halfway to heaven and just a mile out of hell, you never ever forget the shit that almost killed you.