great big jar

I am so happy to be finished with you.

For too long now, you have been a constant preoccupation. You kept me from doing things, interfered with work. There were days I would get out of bed and then not get dressed, all day long.

Because of you.

You would keep me up at night.

Worse, sometimes you would wake me from a sound sleep.

That's how you always were.

But now I am finished with you.

You can go now, and I will go my own way too.

I woke up this morning and realized something.

This is what I realized:

I used to be a boxer.

One summer, around the time when I was 21 or 22 years old, I took off, with all my clothes stuffed in a backpack and a one-way ticket to Italy. After spending a month alone, camping in Yugoslavia, one morning I woke up and something finally dawned on me.

What I realized was this: I did not have two black eyes and did not groan when I stood up in the morning. There was not dried blood in my nose.

It was a real epiphany.

That is how I felt this morning.

It is October 17 and I am not writing.

Goodbye, stupid 105,000-word-long goddamned novel.

I am finished with you.

---