Johnny E. Mahaffery
January 14, 2019
The Novelist Portent

AND LET THERE BE LIFE: I, Pixel

As I've said, this year has LOTS of potential.

Busy, busy, busy.

When I came in from work just a moment ago, it was a little late - and I'd put in an 11-hour shift. I'm tired, but ...never too tired to write. I have to write, it's how I keep my existence.

My children are my legacies.

The women I have loved - still love; because real love never goes away, it just ...adapts, accepts, moves on, but never forgets - all of you, are part of that legacy too. If I die here, like so many I have seen over the years, I know that I am remembered. Now, whether it's fondly is another question.

Candice has expressed worry - but, you know what? - if I went right now, this moment ...my life was at a high, and she is part of that reason. Every word from her, has been positive... And she needs to know, that her words have changed me, brought me back to life, by reminding me of who I am.

For so many years, I have felt like NOTHING, everyone tore me down emotionally, trying to make me feel like I had NO WORTH whatsoever; but, that was never true. Today, and over the past several months, the people who know me have been stepping up, some more than others...but these people all have lives of their own, and responsibilities; accepting me into their days, can be (no matter what they admit) a burden. I know that I am a little burdensome at times, and it's embarrassing, what has become of me - but there is nothing I can do. Here I am, and I can't change anything: no apologies, no words, no acts, or deeds: can take back my mistakes.

I don't know what this year will hold - but, I know, that I am very grateful for this turn of events. I hope that I can be a better writer, a better blogger, because of it; and maybe I can reach people on the path I once was, and warn them. Let them know that the hell they are going through is not unique to them, it's just life, and they will get through it. There ARE people in the world that care! I've had guns to my head, been beaten, had my home robbed, wife assaulted, child kidnapped, abused, robbed - so much pain - and it started from day one. My whole life, is full of pain, but...whose isn't, right? And, I guess there lies the lesson: that what we each take to the end of *our* own world, all the little idiosyncratic things of our own Lifetime movie that demand to constantly go wrong, or fight against us, even the people who knowingly (or unknowingly) wrong us - NONE of it is unique. Our pains and tribulations are shared, not by few, but many, if not most.

The messed up part, that I know realise, is that some people shut me out of their lives - not because they wanted to - but because it was societally expected of them.

Oh, there are those that left because they wanted to.

Just as there are those that want me dead, or suffering.

But, I believe most people are inherently good. They just find themselves following the expectations and examples set by Nietzsche's "heard mentality", a.k.a. "societal norms", instead of their own natural empathetic nature.

So many turning their back to the emotive please of those in need, or under the thumb of political (or state), prosecutorial bullies. Yet, EVERYONE can see the flaws in the perceived norms, taken to be the building blocks of societal structure. Evolution is the only path to survival, things change, and we change - so therefore society must change with us in its own adaptation. I'm just waiting for South Carolina to update its own sentencing, parole and parson laws...bringing them into the current century and stepping away from the punitive, prison profiteering that occurred under the regime of the late '90s. Returning to the expected mission statement of all prisons: rehabilitation.

Not: warehousing.

Warehousing, has now proven to be a financial nightmare for the state, as the cells fill, with no one leaving, and no more funds coming to cover the influx, and keeping of them; because the crime rate does NOT justify the population.

Within it all, here I am. Alive, and living any way that I can. Right now it's as pixels on your screen, created from a scan of a sheet of paper I've typed on with a prison, electronic typewriter. You read the words as they come out, not just because I don't like to reword (keeping it honest and as natural as possible), and to give you my stream-of-consciousness thoughts; but, because these typewriter ribbons cost me $8.75 each.

I give as much as I can, and hope it will not be all that I am able to give - because I have so much more in me to give this world. A lot of poetry, art, writing, novels, essay, love, maybe another wedding...who knows?

I'm just thankful for my re-found (and new) friends, family, and readers: for letting me live, pixel or no pixel.