Old Me, New Me

The old me has moved away from home and vanished over the horizon. A new me has moved in. I am slowly becoming acquainted with him. The old me has left artifacts behind, a dirty sock under the bed, journals in the back of the closet—a perusal indicates they are not worth reading, a plastic beer mug with a baseball logo emblazoned on it, most likely a souvenir from some baseball game played decades ago. His ghost tramps around the house when he is awake, but I find he sleeps more frequently and longer.

The new me seems like a rebellious student, yet he is an old man. He’s like a temperamental child inhabiting an old man’s body. He tells me stories about how he became that way.

A couple of years ago, when he walked across the border dividing middle age from old age, he happened to take the standard battery of career fitness tests. The tests indicated, as they had in the past, that he was an analytical sort and that he should continue on with his career as a Director of Information Technology. He was not happy with those results, for he wanted the tests to say that he was creative and should become a writer. For several months he was torn between two opposite and extreme choices. One morning in early winter, he decided he would write a novel, and the writing of that novel would be his top priority. He wrote a bad novel. Then he wrote another bad novel. Now, he’s working on another bad novel.

As this new year began, he realized he was a student learning how to write. He was an apprentice teaching himself and learning from the masters who wrote the books he admired. Once he came to that conclusion, some of his exasperation, anxiety, and self loathing was expelled from inside him.

I asked him if he had any regrets about becoming a student again. “Not really,” he said. “A person is fortunate when they can become a student again upon entering old age. I have learned to enjoy the writing process no matter how easy or difficult it is on any given day. I mean, I get to make stuff up and write it down. To me that’s a pretty cool way to spend time. Another benefit is I get to read lots of good books because they are my training manuals.”

He told me he had spent four years in the Marine Corps after graduating from high school. After he was discharged, he started college. He was talking to his roommate after his first day of school. When his roommate asked him how the first day had gone, he replied that all they expected him to do was sit around and read all day and take a few quizzes every now and then about what he had read. “How much easier and better could it be?” he told his roommate.

He said learning to write was sort of like that.

I see him walking down the street. He’s coming home. I have to go now.