chapter 1

An autobiography assumes that a person is of interest.

I am, to put it simply, not. There's no fame; you are not interested in me for that reason. Perhaps the internet has created me a footprint, but it's one in the sand below tidelines.

Did something compelling happen to me? When I flick through the canon, it can become easy to think that the answer is yes. People feel entitled for the slightest of reasons, I've noticed. There are memoirs of people like me who, say, lost a parent at a young age, or had anorexia, or lived with ADHD which caused them to bounce around life like a pinball ball bearing. There are nuggets in my life story which are of interest, but to me, these are just quotidian life.

This autobiography will be in no discernable order. There won't be themes or chronology. Memory, I've found, doesn't work in such a way. The vignettes you will read will make you feel normal. You will read the actions of the protagonist and remember, with succinct clarity, that you are an ordinary person who makes rational decisions. If not, you may relate to a woman eating only Pick&Mix sweets for three months, or sitting outside an apartment building on a camping chair to make sure FedEx actually delivers a parcel.

I began by asking why someone might read an autobiography. A more pressing question may be the reason to write one. Writers are not always writing for the reader, after all. Sometimes a piece of writing emerges like flatulence, bubbling up through the gullet and out into the world. This autobiography is just that. It doesn't need to exist, but my does my entity feel lighter, less filled with pressure, now that it does.

I watch it float invisibly into the ether and my object impermanence allows me to move on with my life.