We live in a world where people have mastered the art of managing impressions. There’s fake news everywhere. Fake followers. Fake lives. Fake well… everything. The filters and perfected poses make our lives look better than they really are. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at some of the things I encounter on social media.
I first read Daytripper by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba in Melbourne some eight years ago. The graphic novel was a gift from my friend Tal for my birthday. The images stuck with me. This morning, I remembered the novel and re-read it. It awakened in me something that I hadn’t felt for a long time. Their story inspired me to write my own.
“Some storms come to test you,” my best friend says. “Other storms show up to clear your path.”
I came to the epiphany yesterday that it is only a person who is in a tremendous amount of pain that can inflict that pain on another. And whilst I don’t have anything I really want to atone for – there’s still people I need to forgive. Because if I do not do that, I will continue to suffer long after they’ve gone from my life.
I had it all planned out. I really did.
And then everything blew up in my face.
Not once. Not twice, but time and time and time again.
I’m awake in places I haven’t been awake in a long time. I’m alive in places where I’ve been dead for a long time.
“You’re missing it,” he said to me.
“Missing what?” I asked.
“The journey,” he said. “You’re missing it.”
