I don’t intentionally space these updates out like this. Usually, I’ll make an update and go “I’m free! Time to do something else!” and before I know it, several months have rolled around and a “little break” has turned into cobwebs and dust. That tends to happen a lot more as I’ve gotten older, especially as I find myself chasing whatever interesting whim I find myself currently descending upon.
The subject of age is of particular concern for me on this day, because it would be my mother’s birthday if she were still alive. Five years ago, for her birthday, my father and I bought her a new television and Blade Runner 2049, as she was a big fan of the original Blade Runner. I can recall the events pretty vividly, even now, and then I remind myself that it wasn’t yesterday, last week, or last month; little bits of time have passed and it has now been five years. Half a decade. If I went back to that long ago, I had only been away from Club Fed for just over a year. Time, seemingly an incredibly slow behemoth, has passed in what feels like a blink of an eye.
For better or worse, I continue to write, even though it feels as if there is a lack of purpose in such. In the five years since, I have completed four novels, one novella, and six short stories. It’s not nearly the same pace as that first year, back in 2016, where I completed four novels in an entire year. I’m uncertain if the speed really matters and my philosophy over the past five years has simply been “a little bit at a time.” It doesn’t matter how long it takes, just so as long as there is something consistently built up over time.
Because I have not — and likely will never — have any success in this writing endeavor, I have been attempting to find my way into gainful employment since 2019. Even though I haven’t been setting my sights very high, it’s been a disappointing search, with nothing but rejections stacked upon rejections for the past four years now. Each time I think I’m getting closer, the rug is pulled out from under me. It is seemingly a curse, a silent way the universe is telling me that I’m not welcome here. It’s a feeling I’ve had for my entire life and each time I try to understand the world, everything changes and I am left with a new, indecipherable enigma to solve. Little by little, I build up my understanding, until it inevitably comes crashing down, with nothing but a worthless pile of rubble to show for it.
The future comes, a little bit at a time, and all we can do is the same. A little bit at a time.