The Return

February 6, 2008
5:49 PM

I suppose it was a little selfish of me. If it is any consolation the self-imposed guilt has been consistent if not great. Two years ago I began this blog as a means to keep friends and family posted on my progress through a personal trial; open heart surgery. What I did not anticipate is that both the daily writing I did and the regular feedback I got would be a salve equal to, if not better than all of the drugs, tests, incisions and sutures that would soon follow. And so you were with me along the way; and for what? So that I could abruptly stop writing with no warning, reason or sign-off? The last post from Anonymous was: “You still kickin’?” What a jerk I was.

At the risk of sounding as if I am diverting blame, I believe some of it came from one of my college writing professors. And seeing a pattern amongst some of the writers we had been studying, Hemingway, and Faulkner among them, it seemed as if the only way to write anything worth writing was to have a life no one would want. And by that I mean life experiences no one would want. And Dr. Ginsberg concurred believing that it was not possible to be a quality writer without having a trying life. So I faked it in college writing ‘fiction’. It was not until the late summer of 2005 did I finally have something worth writing about….my mortality. So I did and then I stopped. I stopped because I was out of the woods and I thought, “Who cares about what I write now? I had readers for the same reason that people watch NASCAR or reality TV. For the crashes, for the public humiliation, for the drama. No one admitted it, but the story would not have been nearly as interesting if I were going in for an appendectomy.

But something for me changed when I read a book recently. It is titled Sick Girl written, I think, by Amy Silverstein. So the jacket cover goes something like this:

A vibrant young woman entering the prime of her life discovers that she has cardiomypathy sp? (a dying heart, suffocating from the inside out one A-Fib attack at a time). At the same time she meets the love of her life; a reason to keep fighting. The only thing that will save her physical life is a heart transplant that she eventually gets. But rather than be grateful for the second chance at life she is angry at the doctors, the anti-rejection medication that makes her vomit and the never ending tests she must undergo throughout her life. Is the pain and inconvenience worth it?

I bought the book because I wanted to read about what she went through, which I will say with unmitigated reservation, is absolute Hell. Her story makes my ordeal sound like a teeth cleaning (just the polishing part). And so here is a woman who had plenty of misery and plenty of reason and fodder to write and while it was decent, she is no Hemingway or Faulkner (sorry, Amy). And so I will try a different philosophy. I will write for writing’s sake. And I will share what I observe, and see and feel. And I don’t plan on shooting myself or becoming an alcoholic or even having another heart surgery. I plan on living a boring life while still being a decent writer. OK, I’ve gotta run. I think I have to take the trash out.

~Joe