The State of Unpublished
Someone asked me to. Well, not one someone, but a lot of them. A lot of someones. Don’t you usually feel as though the things that are asked of you externally are usually the things that you’ve been asking of yourself? The external ask is the confirmation that what you know you need, is in fact correct. It’s the verification that we don’t tend to give ourselves when we’re living in a state of internal distrust. That our nudges, our inklings and our desires are only valid if and when they are given a thumbs up. Well, thumbs up Self.
I’m writing again.
I’ve always written, even when I’ve been quiet, but I started hoarding it. Mincing it into bite sizes. The Party-size Snickers doesn’t really count, right? It’s just enough. I leaned towards living in my head, in my journals and in my “unpublished.” The ironic thing about “living in the unpublished,” is that is sort of echoes what we do in our lives 70% of the time. We just let the internal brewing sit there. We know it’s there, we didn’t just trash it because we knew it had a purpose. Yet, we didn’t allow the final 1% of motion and growth to close the case; we didn’t TRUST IT. So, instead we wait for the courage to click, GO. Click PUBLIC. To say what we mean, to break it the fuck off or “On to the Next” it with a spring in our step. Unpublished….sitting there and waiting. Until remembered, or most likely until forgotten.
When I was 19, I was in school at The Musicians Institute in Los Angeles as a vocal major. When I had moved to L.A. I hadn’t the intention to go to school at all, but after sitting in my two bedroom apartment sans one roommate who had made the bold choice to accept an offer dancing on a cruise ship around the Caribbean while I chose to disappear deeper into a burgeoning eating disorder and doubt spiraL, the option happened upon me. I don’t remember exactly how, but it all rearranged rather quickly. As big change often does. When you’re stalling change, the change has no option than to flip the table. Self-correct your apathy, so to speak.
It was probably on a trip to this pizza joint where I would meekly walk up to the counter and say, “We’re going to have one large pepperoni pizza, with a side of garlic sticks. To go please.” As if I was intending on sharing the pizza, when in fact I knew it was only ME who was going to take it home, eat the whole thing, then painfully, sorrowfully rid myself of it. It was so elaborate, the whole ordeal, that I assumed even strangers doubted me. It was somewhere in there, the shameful storytelling and the walk to the pizza joint and back to my car that I saw Musicians Institute. Lovingly referred to as M.I. for those who’ve gone there.
See, prior to moving to Los Angeles, I had known I had a fair amount of talent; I could sing my face off, dance, act, pick up quickly, write a little music...even play some. There wasn’t a musical I hadn’t dissected, or a soul singer I hadn’t studied every note of in my empty bathtub until all hours of the night. I had known, but I still always went to the corner of the room. Not the back, definitely not the front… the corner. The Corner is like the place we go when we know we have the answer and we want to be called on, but we’ve built up this idea that the second they call on us, we’ll forget what we were going to say. It’s the safest place to make excuses for why you weren’t seen. You were “right there.” Even though you know you positioned yourself for just the acceptable amount of effort and failure.
Midway into my year and a half at M.I. I was in the corner during a live-playing workshop, I believe it was a Country workshop. In these classes we had to learn how to play with a live band (later, I would go on to not only know how to do this, but to find it was one of places I felt most safe.) We had to know the tune, perform it in genre and direct the band as a leader would. All the while performing for your classmates.
A woman older than me, late 20’s (which was ancient at the time) walked past me, as I sat in the corner waiting for the class to “run out of time,” so that I wasn’t able to perform and then, she paused. The kind of movie pause. The pause that stops in its tracks like an epiphany appeared out of thin air over your head. Then she said, with tenderness, “Wow….. such a waste of talent.”
And walked away.
Honestly, I don’t even remember her name. The only thing I remember is that she said it with such genuine sadness. I remembered it because I knew she was right. I was hiding.
“Unpublished,” is a state that we create for ourselves when we start to believe our own doubts. Doubt is the most potent emotional state, because it paralyzes you; from asking for the promotion, from saying “I love you.” From doing your fucking best, from DOING without the need for ANY validation. In a time where we are measured by hearts, favorites and thumbs up, that voice that knows despite the affirmation subtly starts to get quieter and quieter. Until eventually, the core of rooted certainty that we are and will always know the truth is so hollow the memory of it seems like a dubious figment of your imagination.
We know. We know. We know. The only thing that separates us from trusting our knowledge in full; of what we need, want, are and can be, is hearing that our knowing is “correct” independant from ourselves. The problem with that is each of us have a different compass of what is “true.” In art, in lifestyles, in decision making. There is no absolute.
Waiting for validation to “perform,” to divulge and uncover all that you are while you’re waiting in Unpublished is the place where truth goes to die. It is where we rust, it is where we get dusty, it is where we become a dream instead of a reality. Don’t wait. Don’t be the one in the corner, the fucking forgotten draft, the “shadow,” of what you hope you can become….when the only step between becoming it or not is clicking Publish.
You are worthy of every single wonderful thing you’ve ever hoped for.
I’ve missed you all. Until next time….
