Before Paris

I have been reading through some of Hemmingway's experiences living abroad. Though he was in Paris and I am in Spain, I feel a strong connection to his memoirs. 

Reading over his words, which are meant to communicate directly, with full force, I feel searing pain in my chest for the dreamer I used to be, the reader I used to be, and the writer and I could have been. But then I keep reading. I keep pushing through, because though Hemmingway does not bother to impress with difficult literary substance, he speaks truthfully. Always. I think.

And when he reflects on his youth and who he once was, he does not leave out the pains of gambling, drinking and hating fellow pretentious writers. 

I wonder if he even meant to be who he was. If he even meant to push the edge of published works by his conversational writing style. And I wonder when I will begin to write as he did, pushing through each morning in a cafe to write, write, write without an edited word till the next day. But I can not fill in the empty years before he lived in Paris with his wife, before he began to gamble and grow fond of wine. 

So these are my years. These are my years, before Paris, so to say. And I hope I do myself justice.