“Don’t forget us when you’re famous.”
That’s what my parents wrote inside the Christmas card they gave to me this year. And it’s something my mother often says to me. “Don’t forget me when you’re famous; you’re going to be somebody one day.” She bases these statements on the infamously flimsy foundation of my writing. To her, writing an article on the Internet means you’ve made it. My father is similarly ignorant. “Can’t you just start a website and make money?” he asks.
I commend my parents for being supportive, but don’t they know anything?
I don’t mean that in a teenage, “OMG my parents are SUCH losers” sense. I mean that a grimmer way.
Don’t my parents know I’m a failure?
Don’t my parents know I worked on-contract as an administrator and editor for a large website for fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, for a pittance (while still working a “real” job) and that after a year the company told me to fuck off instead of offering me a full-time position? “We don’t want anyone who’s not full time with admin access to the website.” A simple sentence negated hundreds of hours of work. I didn’t get so much as a thank you for not taking time off for the two surgeries I had while working for them either.
Don’t my parents know that I made hundreds of posts on another large website only for that site to say there’s no place for me (though there was a place for people who had done nothing on that website, or in the industry, at all)?
Don’t my parents know how brutal, savage, torturous, heartbreaking, and unforgiving this business is?
Don’t my parents know that writing elicits feelings comparable to perennially holding your breath, waiting for a life-saving gasp of air that’ll never come your way?
Don’t my parents know that writing is a sinking ship, with all the passengers fighting over the privilege of drowning last?
Don’t my parents know that writing is self-abuse? Each letter is a laceration, each word a wound. Every time you write an article you’re hurting yourself with the hope that your “career” will somehow work out—maybe if you just write a couple more articles, maybe if you just get a little bit more traffic, maybe if you rub elbows with the right person, maybe if you…
This mental labyrinth has no exit, and there’s a menial job in place of a Minotaur.
Even if you succeed in writing, you’re killing someone else’s dreams and/or livelihood. I earned my first consistent, paid writing gig from a competition. The boss said it was between me and another writer on the site. Whoever had the most traffic by the end of the month would get a contract. I won. The other guy doesn’t even write anymore. Success leaves a wake of failure.
Of course, I’ve been on the wrong end of such exchanges more times in my life than I was on the right side. That doesn’t matter though because I’m going to be famous, right?
But don’t my parents know the truth? That I’m a fucking loser who, outside of an MMA-writing job that I’m insanely thankful for, works a shitty job and isn’t much better off than a retail cashier, despite the page views and shares?
A long while ago I was extremely confident about this one dream job in the city—and without going into detail I had good reason to be optimistic. I didn’t even get an interview. Thirty seconds after I found out they hired someone else, my father walked into my room with an expensive (more than he could afford) laptop case/satchel/manbag. “It’s for when you get that job in the city,” he said.
I didn’t get the job in the city, Dad. They wanted somebody good.
Shit like this is why my heartbeat keeps me awake. It kept me awake that night too. I sat at the edge of the bed with my face in my hands, maddened by the incessant thudding. After half an eternity later, I looked up and in the twilight caught a glimmer of “my” award wall—quotes because dedicating that wall to useless trinkets and accolades wasn’t my idea. Awards from college adorned that wall, as well as a framed copy of a college newsletter interview I was featured in about successful graduates. I conducted that interview the day before I got denied from my original dream job (different than the one I mentioned above). The next day, I wanted to call the guy up and say “Hey, delete all that stuff you wrote about me; I’m a fucking a loser. My career arc will not legitimize your college.”
Instead, I threw everything on the award wall in the trash, and screamed until my vocal chords were frayed and raw. My mother ran into my room. Teary-eyed, the first thing she asked was “Why did you take down your awards?”
They were worthless, mom, just like me and everything I’ve done.
But my parents don’t know that. They’ll continue to believe writing is as easy as pressing keys, and that their son actually has a chance at “making it.”
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