Here we go again

It’s late. And I’m a bit drunk, but only a small bit. More drunk than it is late. How cliché that it should be a date with dear old Jack Daniels that brings me back to this rusty keyboard at long last. No, it has not been writers block, as I have surely had enough to write about. My ill-noticed absence can most probably be attributed to simply: apathy, stagnancy, complacence.

Five years ago I thought with great certainty that writing would always come easily to me, much the way a child never forgets how to ride a bike. But as most clichés go, this one too is the most true. I may still know how to write, just like riding, but I definitely have lost the mastery. I can only guess that I feel much like a prizefighter who has just realized he’s passed his physical prime, or a major-league pitcher who has just lost his stuff; I’m not without options and choices in prolonging my addiction to making my voice heard, but the skill with which I exercise that desire has unquestionably lessened.

Five years ago I thought I knew a great many things about being a writer. Young, dumb, and full of exuberance, I was certain that my talents would simply ripen and, whether or not I nurtured them, they would hang around like good reflexes, lurking in the shadows, calmly awaiting a time when I would call upon them again.

Well, now is the time. Wake Up! Sharpen! Snap! And Fire! Clearly I’ve lost a step. But I have no fear. There is a lot going on. I’m still a professional complainer. I still have a fine taste for the booze. A few years wiser, and even hungrier for growth, learning, and experience, I can promise that I haven’t lost the will to “say something.”

This is not meaningful. It is not profound. But this will be my outlet and I will try my damnedest to make it interesting, mostly because I want it to be read.

I admit, it will not be the funniest selection out there in the ether. It will surely not be the brightest or most unique. It will be the most like me. And that is all I can promise, at least until I figure out who “me” really is.