I read something from someone somewhere here the other day about ‘Imposter Syndrome’. “It’s a terrible thing,” this person said, “but we know that we all have it.” And I thought about that statement for a while and found that I had to disagree with it. Because we don’t know that we have it. We just hope that we do.

Because the primary symptom of ‘Imposter Syndrome’ is not knowing if you have it or not, but suspecting pretty strongly that you don’t.

And then I imagined a conversation with a psychologist on the subject.

This is the conversation ….

She sat across from me looking over the top of her glasses with a fountain pen poised theatrically above her notebook. The first thing I had noticed about her office were the books. I wondered if she had read them all. There seemed to be a disproportionate number of them concerning sex. Sexual abuse. Sexual disfunction. Sexual disorientation. Sexual reassignment. Why were psychologists always so obsessed with sex? Didn’t they care about all the other traps that God had set just to fuck you up?

And then she was trying to deny that she was even a psychologist at all.

“Don’t think of me as a psychologist,” she said, “just think of me as someone to talk to.”

“My grandmother is ‘just someone I can talk to’”, I replied, “but not at $150 an hour.”

“But you can tell me things that you can’t tell her.”

“You obviously don’t know my grandmother.”

But I knew were she was going. She wanted to talk about sex. “I don’t want to talk about sex,” I blurted out.

“That’s fine,” she said. And then we just sat there and looked at each other. She wrote something down in her notebook. What could there possibly be to write down already? I hadn’t even said anything. Except one offhand comment about sex. I felt like I was attending a job interview and somebody else already had the job. She was just waiting for me to slip up and reveal myself as totally unsuitable.

Eventually she broke the silence. “You’re a writer,” she told me.

“Yes. Well … maybe. I don’t know. That’s the whole thing.”

“And you think you suffer from imposter syndrome?”

“Yes. Yes. I’m almost sure of it. I sent you a chapter of my novel. Did you read it?”

“I did,” she replied and jotted down something else about me in her notebook. It was becoming annoying.

“And what did you think?”

She smiled at me in a manner which I interpreted as being condescending and let out a sigh. “I’m not a literary critic, Mr Richmond,” she advised me, “I’m a psychologist.”

“Yes. But you’re a person. A reader. And you’re ‘someone I can talk to’. So tell me,” I begged her, “what did you think?”

“Today, I’m afraid that I can only answer as a psychologist.” She wrote something else down. It was infuriating. I’m not sure that she was even listening. Perhaps she was compiling a grocery list.

“All right then,” I conceded in the end, “Have it your own way. As a psychologist, what did you think of my novel?”

“As a psychologist?” she asked, as if it had been my idea all along. “as a psychologist ….. I don’t think you are suffering from imposter syndrome.”

Here we go again …

Why do I keep doing this?

It’s difficult to be precise about these things but my own assessment is that this is my worst effort thus far. I wait patiently now for the judges to confirm that opinion.

It is supposed to be Historical Fiction/Redundancy/A Money Lender

The Loan Diaries

I am (due, I suppose, to my fetish for emotional masochism) about to enter yet another NYC Midnight Challenge . History will record that I am yet, despite numerous valiant attempts, to progress beyond the first round. Any thought that 2019 will produce a different result would be, clearly, delusional. And the fact is that I am feeling, right at the moment, even less inspired than usual. There is some comfort to be taken, however, in the knowledge that I cannot do any worse.

I will keep you informed.

Anyway, I was looking through previous entries trying to see where I might have gone wrong (the bit residing between the title and the words ‘The End’ seems to be my stumbling block) and I came across an entry to another competition that I suspect was so poor that I didn’t even bother entering it. All I can tell you is that it was a maximum of 500 words and was about ‘a border’.

I post it here, therefore, just to give it a brief moment in the shade and to at least post something, which is more than I have managed for a while.

*************

THE BORDER.

I stopped the car, as had become habit, on a turnout which lies almost exactly halfway between Las Vegas and Flagstaff. The highway has gradually risen to a minor summit at this point and, on a clear night, the distant glow of civilisation can be seen in either direction. It is a place, good as any, to consider one’s meaningless relationship with the cosmos.

The first hints of a new day were painting a faint line on the horizon but above me our galaxy still shone brightly. I lit a cigarette and looked up at the stars as I exhaled the first of the smoke. It can be deceptive to observe the universe as it races away from you and imagine that you are staring into the future when, in fact, you are waving goodbye to the past. I wondered, on this occasion , if the past may be pointing accusingly back.

Over the last two years I had broken each journey here. Just to breath the air. And to contemplate great truths whilst simultaneously concocting minor falsehoods. This was the border. Where I had drawn a line between one life and another.

***

The miles that separated her and I had meant nothing in the beginning, for during those early days of passion we would, if need be, have conducted the affair from the opposite poles of the planet. But the nature of time is to push everything apart and eventually the long highway came to represent more than just an obstacle of geography. Eventually the truth found its way across the border and the two sides of reality conspired against us.

We told lies. Both of us. To hold us together. That is how love works. Because nobody wants to hear the truth – not all of it. My lies had been more grandiose than hers, I suppose. I was relieved now, at least, that I need lie to her no more.

In the end there were just too many questions. Questions that became increasingly difficult to evade, more carefully phrased – more deliberately designed. The meticulously manufactured barriers I had erected here at the border began to topple. The truth found its path along the highway. And the truth was in no mood to set us free.

But we could not both live with the lie, she said.

And I knew that she was right.

***

I have been down this road before, so to speak, and, as unpleasant in the short term as it may be, nothing lasts forever. Time does not come to a standstill. The universe continues its journey from nothingness to nowhere. I choose to stay aboard for the ride.

So, as I stood there before another melancholy sunrise I knew that it was time to move on.

I had only a few hours to return to Las Vegas before my absence would be noticed. And I had yet to dispose of her body which lay cold and emotionless in the trunk.

OK. I admit it. I don’t really know what the 7 reasons are. Although I would have to say, instinctively, that the idea has merit. I just put the photo there to get your attention.

Pathetic, really.

Because this is an attempt to post on a more than semi-regular basis. And is an attempt, I suppose, to share. But it is not a very good one because, once again I have lifted a passing comment that I made to someone else’s post and have dressed it up as an actual post of my own.

I was touched by Stoner’s description of sharing her bed with a sibling and it seemed to me that there is something very intimate and trusting about the idea. We are, as I suggested to her, never more open and vulnerable than when we are asleep.

That my own thoughts drift into a slightly more carnal direction is certainly not intended to detract from the sweet innocence of her own.

Though lonely nights

I’ve known a few

I shared last night

with someone new

We shared the pillow

shared our breath

We shared the moment.

Little death.

We lay together

side by side

We share what we

no longer hide