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Sometimes I want to toot my own horn. Toot toot toot. Fireworks go off. Blue eagles dip in at Mach 3 like it’s the Fourth of July. For a moment, I feel like the main character in a movie only I can see.

But then I remember—I’m human. And it all settles down.

These shifts in energy? They could be signs of ADHD. Or maybe I’m just losing my mind in a Carl Jungian fashion, spiraling into the shadow self, dancing with archetypes and ghosts of who I used to be. Memories creep in like smoke under a door, reminding me why I am the way I am.

An old, stubborn rat bastard who somehow survived years of constant ass-whoopings from life.

I assume most of us go through it. The beatdowns. The heartbreaks. The moments where you stare at the ceiling and wonder if you’re still real. It either breaks you or makes you. For me? I took the self-punishment route. I didn’t cry out—I hid in the shadows and let the pain linger. Just long enough to hear the sizzling of my conscious being burnt to a crisp.

But now that I’m older, something strange happens.

I get these sudden energy spikes. My mind goes 10,000 thoughts per second. I live lifetimes that don’t exist—parallel to this real one. I’m a warrior, a poet, a madman, a rat bastard, a ghost, a god, a loser, a legend—all in the span of a few seconds. And then I’m back. Sitting in my chair. Typing this out. Wondering if anyone else feels this way.

Maybe you do. Maybe you don’t. But if you’ve ever felt like your brain is a fireworks show with no off switch, just know—you’re not alone.

We’re all just trying to make sense of the noise.

I’ve learned to let some ideas and possibilities lay waste. Not because they weren’t good. Not because they didn’t deserve a shot. But because I just don’t have the time or energy to visit all of them.

Different jobs. Different changes. Lifestyles. Choices. Everything and anything. But most of them? Shut down. Not out of fear—out of exhaustion.

Sometimes I’m tired of being tired. So tired that I want to be tired of the bullshit. But then I get tired from that too.

Where’s the escape?

Where’s the emotional release from living a life that only gives you little snippets of happiness here and there, while a whole lot of shit trickles down every time you look up at the rain clouds? You choke on self-doubt. You wonder if it started at the beginning. Maybe it did.

But do I really want to go back and relive it all just to figure it out?

Maybe it all started because I wanted something from life and never got it. Something simple. A basketball. A Nintendo set. I can buy a few now—but back then, I couldn’t.

And maybe that’s the real tragedy of youth. Not innocence. Not naivety. But incapability. Being young means being unable to reach your potential or your path to happiness because you’re forced to rely on something—or someone—else.

And when that something fails you, it leaves a mark.

Or maybe I should revisit that haunted house—the one inside my head—and go out in living colors like Jung did. Write about it here. Let the world see it. I already broke the barrier of being shy. I’ve released my truths into the ether. I can’t be shy now. I can’t be afraid.

And the truth is—I did revisit it.

I went full shadow work. And it was shitty as hell. Ugly. Brutal. Honest.

Yet here I am. Still making the same mistakes. Running the same patterns. Stuck with the same blueprint.

So what is it?

Maybe it’s time to say fuck that and move on without looking back. Let the inner child drown in the flood of reality. Let him go. Because I will survive.

For how long?

Long enough.