Dearest Rachel –
It’s a good thing that I don’t direct these letters at anyone but you, and it doesn’t matter to me as to how many others might be reading this over your shoulder. I don’t have any consistent message of uplift or progress that would appeal to a mass audience (or, on the other hand, some sort of chronicle of mental disintegration that I was half-expecting when I started this). There’s just this day-to-day life that moves in the same way that a glacier does; inching forward, inching backward, all the while scraping uncomfortably at the surface of the earth below.
My diet and exercise regimen has seemingly stalled yet again, for example. This past weekend was actually quite successful in sustaining a fast for the first time in what feels like months, and even after breaking it with a birthday lunch with the family at Lou’s (since I’ve come to accept that only Daniel and I would enjoy a Japanese place – and the type we’d really enjoy right now doesn’t exist in the area), a morning’s exercise brought me down to the two-twenty line yet again. But after a couple of days away from the gym, combined with a couple of days of eating out, and suddenly I’m nearly back within the clutches of two-thirty instead.
Meanwhile, I think I’ve actually managed to figure out how to set up and assemble the new camera I was telling you about – registering it with the company (so as to be covered by the warranty) and connecting it via app and Bluetooth to the phone. I haven’t quite figured out all of its accessories, but they seem to be more associated with action shots – attachments to helmets and handlebars that I won’t be using so much of – so they may be essentially irrelevant to my purposes. I should be able to film myself and the room, in preparation for the first couple of sequences that I’ve envisioned, in the near future; which is good because I’d like to be on the way to creating something before day two thousand shows up within the next three months.
All of which sounds like tremendous progress, doesn’t it? And yet, just at that moment when it looks like I’m about to get the hang of this thing, I start researching how to create written text onscreen, as part of a brief opening monologue… and it proves to be an incredibly tedious process to go through every little loop and whorl of the several spoken lines. I mean, it can be done, but it’s not nearly as easy as it feels like it ought to be. It explains why it’s not generally how things are done, I guess, but this is what I have in mind to do. And just studying how to do this absolutely drains me of any motivation to proceed, at least for the moment.
It’s funny sometimes, how just when something is in your grasp, and you’re seemingly just on the verge of a breakthrough… and you lose you grip on it all.
And this is why I’m glad to only be talking with you about this. I don’t have the sort of message of inspiration to offer an audience that might be reading over your shoulder. Nor, at the same time, can I present the drama of someone on the verge of collapse. My life isn’t one filled with either hope or despair; it’s just the story of your husband trying to get through another day without you. Some of those days have hope, and some have despair, but it’s not as if there’s any consistent pattern. And just as the trend line seems to be arcing in one direction or another, on one front or another, there’s a sudden turn – or even a momentary hiccup – and the progress is lost.
It’s not the sort of thing that would lead a reader to think, “well, if he could do that, so could I,” and find inspiration to carry on for themselves. Nor is it something that could be read with the satisfaction of “well, at least I’m not having to deal with the sort of thing that he’s going through, so my life isn’t all that bad.” It’s just an ordinary life, just like the kind everybody else is dealing with. No deep insights, no great tragedies; just “a line a day when you’re far away,” and only you would be interested in that.
But that’s all this was meant for in the first place; just a means for me to at least pretend to keep in touch with me (and in so doing, allow me to keep in touch with my past, if only that which has passed since you have). It’s not meant for a wider audience – although it would be nice if others were able to take comfort in my journey, or find something worth emulating about how I travel it – and I can’t modify it so as to make it so. I’ll tell you about what happens and the thoughts that cross my mind as they do so, because that’s all I have. The big plans, I may allude to, but you might recognize this tendency of mine to let go of them just when they’re within reach, so I can’t make any promises of success, for me or anyone else.
These are why I constantly ask you to keep an eye on me, honey, and to wish me well; because I really do need it.
Letters to Rachel 