Crankypants??

OK, so I have this mental block. I am a fiction writer, even when there isn't a word processor around for miles. To me, life has a narrative arc. But, uh, blogs don't it seems. Or at least it sort of seems that imposing a narrative arc on a blog means that it isn't a blog anymore.

But this is my space, right?

So, I think I am going to take artistic license, and tell the story anyway -- the what and how I came to feel like I was approaching enough perspective in my life to write the book that prompted this blog.

Here's the funny thing...I always thought I understood hardship when I was in my early 20's. Ironically, I don't know many people who do, unless they lived a life no one should. There are those who are abused, neglected, traumatized -- those like Max and Menna -- who have perspective at the age of 23. I did not.

This is not to in any way minimize what anyone feels at that age. I remember being 23, the weird feeling of so much energy without a place to focus it. That coupled with the enormous let down of the "quarter life crisis." You spend four years at school being told that you are amazing, with the only true measure of success as a little mark on the piece of paper you get at the end. Then you start working, and you go from amazing to fetching coffee. I was overwhelmed by the feeling of "this is it?" And I thought I understood how rough life could be, but still couldn't find the words to write Max and Menna because believing that I truly understood was both arrogant and naive.

There are two separate but inexplicably intwined instances that really began to change that for me. Ironically, they both began around the same time-- Spring of 2005.

Event one began on a blind date in a Chinese food restaurant. Event two didn't so much as begin as it did to grow, as my mom began to break bones without explanation.