Jan 19, 2014, 10:40:57 PM

There had been an unintended consequence to confronting myself. On one level, because I took the message to heart, I no longer needed to lie to myself. I was who I was. I wasn’t normal by any stretch of the imagination, and I remained a living contradiction. I still faced the impossible on two sides. In reality, I had to change the world to be the same in body as I am in spirit. In truth, my spirit would break if I truly conformed to reality.

Rock, meet hard place.

I remained in the exact same place I started. I am not who I appear to be, but I have to live up to that appearance to function in society on a daily basis. I had options. There are always options, if you consider it. I could have simply asserted myself in spite of everything. By that, I mean, simply live, no compromises. In many ways, that’s exactly what I did. The people I dealt with still saw a man, and treated me as one. The habit of being one was what carried me through situations–on a superficial level–on a daily basis.

I tried not to let that bother me. I opened up to people who took enough interest to ask. Admitting that they could not quite understand it, most were willing to just accept I was odd. Good people. I even got over the failure of a relationship that choked on my–our?–appearance. He was a writer and a dreamer, and he confronted me with a paradox I still boggle at. I first contacted him in response to his writing. I acted on impulse–in response to a feeling; a silly, kind of embarrassing thing, really.

He reminded me of the man of my dreams.

Ten years earlier, in what was roughly our tenth IRC chat, he insisted on knowing what my problem was. Our initial connection had been Ranma 1/2 fanfiction, so we’d already talked about gender issues. It was something he’d struggled with too. I gave in to his insistence, confiding that my identity conflict merely hinged on gender, encompassing every facet of my being. He pressed for an explanation and I described myself fully to him.

To our mutual shock, he recognized the description intimately. I was–in spirit–the embodiment of the girl of his dreams. OMFG… WTF? AYFS! I hesitate to go into the details, because this part is as much his story as mine. It isn’t my place to tell his side, but I can say this was a mind-bending challenge for both of us. We tested and probed, consistently finding more common threads. If our dreams and stories were not literally connected, their resonance provided its own connection.

Nothing in reality supported our bond, and the presentation of our stories was not identical. The similarity was essentially spiritual. An underlying truth was a real possibility, reinterpreted through our unconscious minds. I weighed my doubts and balanced my suspicions; but the one thing I knew for certain was that reality denied it. It was something outside the box. All that mattered, in the end–and for whatever reason, was, I had a relationship with someone on the basis of who I truly was.

I found comfort in the fact that, even in reality, a significant number of people are open to the prospect of soul mates–in spite of uncertainty that souls even exist. It wasn’t that I fell in love with him; rather, I’d found the one I love. I agonize over his circumstances in life every bit as much as my own. I knew that in practical terms, our relationship was doomed; but, I still tried to pursue it.

I put it off for about eight years, and then finally I committed. I packed up and moved to be with him, and… well, it didn’t work out. In spite of what we shared–what we would always share–reality still stood between us. I found a job and a place to live, and tried to endure the frustration. A year or more passed, before I had that dream. The changes I went through, throughout those days, went for the most part unnoticed.

To sum it all up, I was heartbroken. The irony. I always expected my downfall would come when my spirit broke. I guess we all have our blind spots. Looking back on it later, I saw by that point in my life, my spirit was damn near invulnerable. My weak spot, unnoticed throughout my life, was my heart. I love things deeply, passionately and unconditionally. Though I hated my circumstances as intensely, I loved life unreservedly. I denied my self for the love of the family that took me in as a child.

I loved a man I had dreamed of, and left him rather than impose the harshness of my reality on him. I even loved the man in me, though it all but destroyed me to be him. I loved the world–and the people–I dreamed up to escape from reality. I loved them enough to share my story–insane as it was–even if writing it killed me. So, I dropped this burden on top of everything I struggled with, overlooking what made it the final straw.

I should have picked up on it immediately, but–again–I had a blind spot. Usually, once I made up my mind to do something, I became committed to it. At the time, I thought I was just trying to be practical. Metaphorically killing myself to write a story was completely different from not being able to survive as a consequence of working on the project. Since my job prospects were turning sour, I moved back home to finish my degree and find a job that would support me.

I set forth with determination, but the unintended consequence kicked in. Confronting myself the way I had, staring the truth in the face, I did not just stop trying to hide from the truth. I allowed myself to admit that the reason for all of my suffering was because I was that truth. My doubts and beliefs were beside the point. It hurt to be denied by fact, but I suffered because the method I used to get by in life required me to deny myself.

I was not completely incapacitated. As I struggled to reorganize my life and find a way to make a living, I noticed that the experiences and habits I picked up as a guy remained. I’d been forced to call on my family for help getting back on my feet. I found that I could still play the part of the brother and son I became for them. He was not me, but he existed within me. I could almost just run on autopilot and focus on the specific task at hand.

I guess the clearest way to express it was that I didn’t try to believe I was him. I did not need to get out of his way in order for him to help me. That old trick of dividing my mind meant we could work together to get through the day. I still faced the same level of frustration with my body, and I still wished I could devote myself to changing it. At the same time, I understood, even with that power at my disposal I would still have a problem to resolve.

I have had an “In Case of Miracle” internal think-tank running in the back of my brain since I was a child. Many of my early stories were variations on facing the consequences of a real transformation. Doubt, disbelief and denial presented the biggest challenges. So, the likely consequence of changing would be the same as appearing from nowhere. I would have no legal identity, no citizenship, no rights, etc.

Funny that I’d be worried about that when any rational person would be focused on the seemingly more immediate question: is there any power at my disposal?

“At the rate you’re going, you’ll be homeless in a couple of weeks,” he admonished me as I set down my coffee. He doesn’t exist apart from me, but he lives in my mind. I’ve leaned on him for years, and long before we faced the truth, he made it clear he would rather die than live in a world without me. For most of my life, I talked to him to get through to myself. From time to time, he was choosing to assert himself in order to speak to me.

I suppressed a tired smile, “He speaks.”

Laughter rumbled out of him. That wasn’t the response he expected. “I’m just saying, it’s been five years. I know things were difficult, and that you had a lot of distractions to deal with, but you were in a better position to write anytime over the last three years. You waited until you were on the verge of living on the street to start writing?”

I took in a deep breath and let it out in a hard sigh. “I was a panic attack away from hitting the streets almost every minute of those past three years,” I reminded him. I did not have to say that it was not fear or concern about the hardships that action entailed that kept me from bailing.

“I can remember a few nights you did crack and run. I’m sorry the emergency room visit went the way it did. Three thousand dollars is a lot to pay for a handful of pills, and, ‘I’m sorry, but we can’t help you,’” he lamented.

“Especially since I only took three of them before I concluded the didn’t do anything,” I grumbled, rolling my head and listening to the faint crackle in my neck. I wrinkled my nose in annoyance. These exchanges used to be an excuse to step out of body.

“Yeah, well, you never did react to drugs in a normal way. Just about everything makes you try to hack reality,” he accused gently. He rested phantom hands on my phantom shoulders, as if the body I was wearing was not there. “You know it’s not good to push that way.”

I narrowed my eyes and bent my head forward. “I don’t see an option that doesn’t involve putting more pressure on myself,” I protested.

He leaned into my back and wrapped his arms around me. “You do have a knack for crazy. Are you sure you want to write all this down?” he asked, looking at the screen over my shoulder.

I shrugged. “As you pointed out, this isn’t a good time to tackle the story. I think I have time to highlight the story behind the story, though. I got the idea when I updated the resume on my old blog.” I didn’t really need to explain any of this to him, but I felt conversational. “I hadn’t looked at my blog in years, so I started reading through my old posts when I was done.”

I frowned at my empty coffee cup. I’d been too focused on talking and typing to notice when I finished it. With a rueful shake of my head, I resumed, “I got through The Price of Dreams, remembered there had been more to it, and it clicked. A couple months ago, my therapist suggested I try writing short-fiction; Amazon Singles type of stuff. At the time, I didn’t think I had any ideas suited to a short novel.

“I always expected to revisit that scene near the end of the story, but… fully fleshed out, it should work as a novella,” I told him.

“You’re a few chapters short, I think,” he informed me.

“Um. Yeah,” I sighed, mentally pushing back from my desk and running my hands through my hair. “I sort of caught up to myself. On the other hand, I’m kind of worried that the next three chapters won’t be enough to address all the stuff that came out while writing.”

He ruffled my hair and kissed me on top of my head. “Like I said, you do have a knack for crazy.”

I took a moment to reflect on what the next step should be. He stepped out for a cigarette and when he came back, he said, “Why don’t you just tell me what you’ve already figured out.”

I let out a puff of air and dove into it, “The dream was a turning point. Honestly, there have been many dreams and many writings like it–a recurring theme in my life. I could expand this part of the story if I could track them all down, but… I don’t suppose it matters. What matters is… that particular dream served as the inspiration to confront myself in that particular post. That’s where I was forced to acknowledge the truth of the story.”

“And what is the truth?” he prompted.

I knew the answer but it wasn’t easy to phrase. “I have a real knack for crazy?” I joked, to put off answering.

“True, but not the answer to the question. Do you want me to say it?” he reprimanded.

I rolled my eyes. If I tried another snappy comeback, he probably would. But, he wouldn’t have asked me to spell it out first unless it was important that I say it. A simple way to express it occurred to me, but I wasn’t exactly happy with it. None-the-less, I spit it out, “I’m a figment of my own imagination?”

He scratched his head and shrugged. “I suppose we are all, when you get right down to it, but I think you can do better.”

I sighed. “Okay. I feel like I’m probably repeating myself here. The truth of the story is that it’s ultimately my story. My imagination unleashed. I used it to figure things out, about myself and about everything. I acted on impulse and instinct and intuition, doing things without thinking about how I did them. I created an omniverse, and learned the consequences of playing with it. I was playing with fire and I didn’t even notice. I gave myself access to absolute power.”

He studied me silently for a moment before prompting, “Unlimited power?”

I paused with my mouth open. The implications of that question almost slipped by. I cleared my throat and said, “I’m kind of afraid to touch that. My first impulse was to say yes, I saw no reason to limit the scope of my imagination or what I could do with it. But the way you asked…” He had chosen to assert himself right after I’d typed out a question. Had I given myself access to all the power at my disposal? “I don’t know.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with your first impulse? What puts you in doubt?”

“I’m not sure. It seems to be a matter of perspective. In my own mind, I can do whatever I want, but I have to respect certain limits. I have a lot going on in my mind, and all of it takes will. If some whim of mine threatens to compromise a process I respect, I’ll defend it. A fight like that can become pretty scary. So, I learned to be conscious of the implications and consequences of using power. Um. I guess the best way to say it is that I am the limit,” I shrugged, hoping that was clear enough.

“Now we’re getting somewhere. Unfortunately, you’re about to pass out.” He tried to pry me away from the keyboard and send me to bed, but I refused to go until I finished one last sentence.

It was early morning when I went to bed, and early afternoon when I woke up. I wanted to get right back to the story, but first I had to answer the call of nature, boot up my computer, brew a cup of coffee and step out for a cigarette to get my brain in gear. I was down to a few six-packs of ramen, a can of chili, a can of tomato soup, an eighth of a jar of peanut butter and a frozen hamburger patty in the kitchen, so I knew I had to go shopping as soon as possible.

I’d be tempted to stop for a pack of smokes, since I’d probably smoke my last two along the way. I did not care for the habit, but aside from the addiction, it was a way to relieve stress. It’s been good for my sanity. Alcohol does nothing for me and I’m not into the recreational use of drugs. My “drug” of choice was creativity. If I put off shopping to write, though, I’d just get distracted by hunger and the craving to smoke.

I was tempted to tough it out. I was well past broke. I’d been waiting to get paid for some work I did for a friend. Turned out he was having money problems himself. The money I had was a sort of gift from my brothers–and possibly more than they could afford. I have a generous family, but let’s face it, times are hard. We all have to struggle to support ourselves, and money is always a stumbling block.

It does not actually matter how much work you do. Economics is about the value of resources, such as labor, service, and administration, or products, materials and property. Things like talent, perspective, and honesty are incredibly valuable, but only when they can be recognized. A valuable quality must prove itself; it depends on the opportunity to do so, to have a chance to be employed. The irony is that the most valuable qualities require some practical application before they mature into their true worth.

It’s a lesson I learned my first freshman year in college, when I needed a job just to stay in school to become qualified for a decent job. I worked on creating my own opportunities, but the wrong kind of job would cost me more than I earned by disrupting my work. My creative skills withered through years of poverty, then struggled to bloom–in the shadow of working and studying–when I finally went back to school.

The opportunities I’d found since graduating had been both rare and anemic. I made the most of what I could get, but worked more often at finding a job than I worked on paying jobs. Ironically, my most creative period in years had been the last four months–and counting–I’d spent in pursuit of a job. Perhaps that explained why I dwelt on the subject while I was shopping. It had a lot to do with what compelled my current writing, so when I got home I typed gist of it down.

“I sometimes wish the technology to record thoughts had been invented,” I sighed, as I settled in to resume the conversation I’d interrupted. “Writing them down after the fact, I always feel like the best parts get lost.”

“Not so much lost as not shared,” he pointed out. “It’s a trade off. If you record a stream of consciousness, the best parts can get lost in the chaos we call thinking.”

I hummed in agreement. Clearing my mind of distractions, I focused on where we left off when he sent me to bed that morning. “The last thing you said was that we were getting somewhere, but where exactly were we getting?” I asked.

He settled in and composed his thoughts before answering. “You figured out that the dream was about acknowledging the truth of the story. Being in conflict with–and unable to do anything to change–reality forced you to create your own reality. The life you lived presented you with possibilities and challenges, concepts and doubts that you wrestled with in your imagination. The power you played with might have been limited to yourself, but you accepted the consequences of playing with it.

“Last night you were debating a point that you were not ready to write down,” he diverged to address what prompted him to confront me. “It was something along the lines of; children are better than adults at understanding magic. Adults have to know how it works before they’re willing to accept it, but kids can accept that something makes it work–they just want to have access to it. So, while the adult asks, ‘How does this fit in with what I know?’, the kid asks, ‘What do I have to know so I can do this?’”

I nodded, grateful that he was able to put the thoughts into words. “I think people would get a lot further with understanding things if they had the same attitude as kids,” I smiled, remembering that thought had been very clear in my head.

He nodded back, “Right. Now, as it happens, that’s exactly what you did. You pictured the result you sought and you worked out what was required in order to achieve it. You did that over and over, every time you confronted a problem, and all of that became an influence on the story.” Without breaking stride, he changed tracks, “Going back to last night, you also observed that there’s an implicit question that should be asked if you’re talking about power in reality.”

I knew exactly what he was talking about. “Yes. It’s so easy to get caught up in how this or that is not possible in reality. But, before you struggle with the notion of having the power to change reality, you first have to ask: What is reality? That’s a tough question and you can get lost in it, devote lifetimes to the question and never come up with a definitive answer.

“As far as concepts go, reality gets pretty elusive, but that’s because people think too light on the definition and too hard on the description. The thing about reality is that it is presented to us as an accomplished fact. How the hell does that happen?” I demanded rhetorically. “It implies that any requirements essential to the process have already been met. The potential is a given, but what is it?

“Reality can hardly be a prerequisite for the potential of reality, so we have to be open to the possibility that reality is not a prerequisite for existence but more a condition of existence,” I speculated. “A lot in that to think about, but as far as we’re concerned here, the question to explore is: What is required for something to be real? What does it take for something to become real?”