rinue | Arizona Sunroof

It was the two year anniversary of my journal three days ago; I'll probably put up some kind of retrospective later. Despite my recent lack of updates, I've written 369 entries total, which averages out to one every other day. Don't know how I managed that.

Part of the reason I haven't been writing lately is the way my entries keep devolving into political rants. While I believe these rants have intrinsic value, and they do a good job of representing my internal landscape, the fifth entry decrying direct election of senators would go too far - no different from a journal which only ever says "I'm sooooo in love with my boyfriend" or "I need to lose more weight!"

However, the main reason for not writing, which cuts a litle deeper, is the thing at the root of the political rants - pain. It's not a beautiful or noble pain. It's not a striving, self-sacrificing pain. It's the pain of a trapped and wounded animal - and it's so ugly that I don't want anyone to see it unneccessarily.

I have always put great stock in personal myths, my own experience of faith. Belief creates hope, and hope moves you forward. America has always been my most important myth, meant more to me than God does to the faithful. It has not, however, been my only myth: I've had Robin Hood, the free market, Star Wars, King Arthur, feminism, the myth of Romie, and the power of myth itself, the thing that drove me to writing.

It's hard when all of your myths have deserted you. You can't trust anyone, not even yourself, because trust is a form of belief. Why fight, why experiment, when success has a zero-percent rider? Say I'm wrong and I do become "successful" - what is success when you're afraid to walk out your door?

I'm tired of being so bitter. It's unattractive, and it's certainly not pleasant. But where do you find a "new" myth? It's impossible. Myths by their nature are that which transcend, that which builds on centuries of thought and dreaming.

Even the myth of Romie.

Time to reestablish.