My Obituary Of Guiltless Leisure

Ok, so I finished the "final" draft of The Clinic (if you're keeping count, that's the third "final" draft). Anyway, I'm waiting to get everything in order to start shopping literary agents, and for the first time in over a year; I don't have some pressing task to complete.

So I'm sitting here after reading a few chapters of Orwell's 1984 and I feel like a total piece of shit; a lazy, unproductive, unmotivated, waste-of-space, piece of shit.

Now look, feeling like a POS isn't a foreign experience for yours truly, I've had ample reasons—most well deserved—to feel less than worthy; about myself and especially my decisions. But what is new for me is this motivation; to be constantly producing, evolving, growing, and expressing. I'm sure there are more than a few of you, who've known me for some years, that understand my surprise at this newfound discipline and "go-getter" attitude.

Where was this, need to be productive, when I was out there trying to stretch my drug fueled teenage years into my early thirties?

Even stranger, to those of you who've known me for some time, would be the idea that I've become somewhat of a mentor of responsibility in here. Somewhere along the way I became the guy who says things like: "What are you doing to better yourself today?" and "You don't get to be bored. Go find something you're good at and invest your time into mastering it." And, "Be a man (Alright feminists, you can untwist your panties; it's only because I'm in an all male prison that I only use the male pronoun. "Be a woman" would be used just as succinctly. [For the panties in a twist" comment; I have no defense, other than to make me and #Jeremy Grimes laugh])

The point is, I woke up one day and realized that I had become a motivated, hard working, determined, self aware...Man?

I guess so.

So without the novel to satisfy this new obsession; to be working towards something, to be producing, I'm left here feeling like irreplaceable sand is slipping through the hourglass of life. This book has taken up all of my free-time (aside from an hour a day in the weight pit) for the last year straight, and this pestering itch has been nagging at the back of my cerebral cortex for the last few days. I realized that, somewhere along the way, I lost the pleasure to be found in doing nothing, I have been abandoned by my laziness, and neglected by my sloth. 

So in this new life, robbed of the right to be self-deservedly lethargic, I had to pick up this tablet and write something even if it's just a belated obituary to my relationship with guiltless leisure (GL):

GL, we have spent so many years as faithful, and completely unproductive, companions, and you will truly be missed, but our time together has run its course. I wish we could still snort oxycontin and think of increasingly ridiculous, (but actually used in real life), reasons to call off of work. Remember the time I told my boss that my brother died in a car accident so I could have a four day weekend and we could spend the time getting wasted together? And remember, you told me it wasn't that bad because my brother didn't really die in a wreck. And I said: "I don't even have a brother, so it really doesn't even count towards any had juju? Ahh.. Good times. I don't even remember what we did that extended weekend (RIP bro) but that's the point! It was most definitely nothing of consequence.

I want you to listen carefully, and I mean this with all sincerity; it's not you it's me. We've just grown apart. I mean look at what I used to do just so we could be together at every turn, now I hate myself if we even bump into each other.

And I hope you find happiness with someone else; someone who could use a long, unproductive, and sedating relationship with you...and I hope I'm not being too forward, or over-stepping my bounds, but has anyone introduced you to Donald? You two would make a really great couple. He's got money, really great hair, and is a complete narcissistic, which I know you look for in a partner. In any case, a part of me will always belong to you, and when I'm working away into the wee hours of the night you will be on my mind in the best of ways.

Good luck with everything, and though we can no longer be together, I will always love you....XOXO.

Rest In Peace my Guiltless Leisure.