by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Something about turning 50 in just about a month is doing a real number on my mind and heart because it is really beginning to sink in that it’s kind of put up or shut up time. If I don’t do something, anything of creative note soon I’m going to be so old that whatever success I have will be framed exclusively in the context of, “how does it feel to be a success so late in life.”
I hate that.
But things kind of snuck up on me.
After Seoul, I was a changed man. I was consumed with grief over what happened with ROKon Magazine to the point that I was stuck very much in neutral. I had ambition, but no motivation. I was in something akin to a self-construction mental prison.
But now I’m free and I have a very clear focus –write the best possible first novel I can. And, if I’m really lucky, begin a career as a successfully published novelist from here on out. I have to say, though, that the limits of age are really beginning to roll around in my mind.
As I keep saying, even if I get what I want, I don’t get what I want. I want to be an overnight success and then go back to working towards making all the dreams of my 20s come true now, as someone in my 50s. Sadly, of course, that’s just not how it would happen.
Under the most ideal of circumstances, even if I am an “overnight” success by writing a really popular first novel….oh boy. I have, in real terms, just a few years to live up to my “potential.” It takes time to create things and being a success suddenly in my (mid) 50s just isn’t going to give me the same opportunities than I would have had in my 20s.
If you’re a man who’s never been married and don’t have kids, getting older kind of sneaks up on you because there are no rituals associated with zooming past your 40s. The best you have is you suddenly realize that, in real terms, you simply can not date someone in their 20s and, what’s worse, you probably don’t even really want to.
It’s not like I can somehow give my mind a hard reboot and think like I did when I was in my 20s. That’s just not how any of this works. If I’m a success in a few years, it will be in the context of being a success in my mid-50s after having done absolutely nothing with my life for the better part of 15 years. You just can’t fix that problem.
So, in real terms, I’ve made my decision and that’s that. To any “normal” person with a traditionally successful career what I want to with my life is pretty fucking bonkers. I’m being extremely and wilfully delusional.
Keep the faith.
