Writing For The Mentally Disturbed 101.2, an essay by RayFed at Spillwords.com

Writing For The Mentally Disturbed 101.2

Writing For The Mentally Disturbed 101.2

written by: RayFed

@MrRayFed

 

There are three types of people in this world. The “I AM’s” and the “I WAS” and the “I WANT”. Most of us start out in life as an I WANT and graduate into an I AM. Most people live a life of being an I AM. Those are the people who are loved and wanted and surrounded by loved ones around their deathbed as they pass away peacefully, or you were an I AM that died suddenly because you were doing something that was too much of an I AM. Something like rock climbing, or swimming naked with sharks, or hang gliding or skydiving. I think either of those two is preferable to anyone in this world because the alternative is very sad.

The I WAS living in the now is the saddest of all creatures. A life spent wishing to be an I AM. I’m still relatively young, I’m only 48 but I could expect to do a lot of I AM things before my time is up. I got sick just about 12 years ago and my option to be an I AM is gone. I think back on those years where I could have been an I AM but wasted them by just being a stupid asshole I WANT.

An I WANT is someone who neither cares about the past and is so far removed from the future that they can only see “what is” in front of them at the moment. Never dreaming of being an I AM and stupid even to see back into the I WAS.

Now, here at the edge of being 50 and having been sick for 12 years I look back and see the I WAS and how very little of an I AM I had. Mostly I just see the sad, lonely I WANT but I try to turn those I WAS into I AM moments and relive them in my head. I think that’s what keeps me going. I know I should be thankful for all the things I have… food, a roof over my head, breath in my lungs, life in my body. I know I should say thank you God for all that I WANT, all that I AM and all that I WAS but where life is concerned I am greedy and I want more. More time. At the very least a do-over but the I WANT, the I WAS, and the I AM know this isn’t going to happen.

So where do I go from here? There isn’t any path that I follow, no goal that I am trying to achieve. I’m just sitting here in the middle of my I WAS being an I WANT. Change does not come easily to the I WANT’s. It takes a great deal of effort and support to alter the course of these people. As it seems I have neither. So I sit here and sip my coffee and stare out the window and imagine the I AM from my past in the shapes of darkness playing on the hillside and trying to be the goodest, bestest I WAS I can be.

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