Hey everyone. Not really sure how to “start” posting this way. Consider this the awkward handshake, I guess.
I’m Josh Breidbart. I write the stuff that Zack draws.
For a while now, Zack’s been insisting I should be blogging here. For years, Even my wife, for years, has insisted that returning to my blogging roots would be the perfect writing exercise and also a great way of interacting with the Unlife community in general. But blame it on the social anxiety or the intense ADD, I jump from project to project, never spending more than a few months on any, hoping to build a large output of material, planting and replanting in hopes of a large harvest. Even Unlife, though I talk with Zack every day, only gets a few months of work per year to prepare the next chapter of James’ undead adventure.
Honestly, I truly do hate shifting gears. I didn’t think I had time to blog and write Unlife and the million other goals I had. I thought a laser focus would build my momentum, allowing me to strike at the core of what I wanted as I dove into each new project. I needed to be working towards something, a nebulous term that has driven me through the last 5 years of freelance writing.
Spoiler alert: all I actually needed was to write.
Writing was, and still is, a safe space to… I suppose the best word is “experiment”. It’s a space to express myself and to pick apart my feelings about people, and events, and my interactions with them. And it’s safe because it features fictitious characters and events that could never play out. It’s not real (although it is to me).
But blogging means reaching out and interacting, directly talking to real people, and I felt I was unprepared. It was hard to imagine letting others have that direct line to my Safe Space.
I feel for Stacy, driving her car into the unknown. I used to have a car, which was a sort of safe space. Or rather, a rage can which magically moved me from location to location. When that location turned into New York City, I gave up driving by myself in favor of sharing a train with a million other people. It’s been difficult to find a “safe space” among the crowd, or even a rage can. Headphones only help so much.
And when I think about my trouble in finding a place to just be, I can once again relate to Stacy, who, for a time, only found an escape in delving into pot, exercise, or even the arms of a guy who loves her. She just wants to be okay when things aren’t. And sometimes, she has to run away from those things for a bit, in all definitions of the word.
Like Stacy, I had convinced myself that I was limited. That I was only capable of certain things in certain ways. I can only write in the moment. I can only “be” in my safe space.
I don’t have to switch gears if I don’t leave the car.
And then you know what happened? My asshole partner Zack put together a pretty page AND THEN still wrote a heartfelt blog post.
You dick. If you can do it, f*** me, what am I complaining about?
Writing is a safe space, but it doesn’t have to be just MY safe space. And it’s not even as complicated as I make it. My safe space, the place where I feel sane and able to express what I’m feeling, is nothing but a rage can when I’m alone. It feels far safer when I let people in. When there’s more than just me in the car.
So, from now on, I’ll be writing here. The car door is open, and if you like, let’s take that ride together.
Just make sure to wear a seatbelt. I’m an awful driver.