Who Am I?

I don't even know anymore.

Who am I?

Once upon a time, I was a noteworthy celebrity of class and culture. I was a New York Times Bestselling Author with a blue checkmark beside my name on Twitter, confirming to the world that I was elite and accomplished. My earned not bought verification communicated to lesser mortals that my rage tweets during sporting events, and tweets composed entirely of rap lyrics, were to be respected and regarded as art. Men would buy me drinks in bars and women would throw themselves at me like snowballs.

I was a star. I was the man. But now I’m not sure who I am.

This week, I was stripped of a paramount piece of my self-worth. My blue checkmark on Twitter was taken from me. What once was verified (my identity), is no longer. I might as well burn my driver’s license, social security card, birth certificate, and self alive, because the Ross Bolen that existed just a few days ago is dead and gone. I no longer identify as myself. I identify as nothing.

Am I still technically a New York Times Bestselling Author?

Does anyone even see my hilarious tweets now?

Will my son still recognize me as his father? 

Perhaps time will tell. Much remains to be seen. For now, all I can do is keep my chin up, force a smile knowing my ambition far exceeded my talent, and step-by-step continue walking aimlessly through yet another hour of this unverified life. There are no more white horses or pretty ladies at my door. “One day at a time,” I tell myself.

But I don’t recognize the face I see in the mirror. The face that once smiled back at me as if to say, “You are one handsome, Twitter-verified son of a bitch,” is missing. In its place, I see an aging douchebag with no blue checkmark next to his head. The younger, better-looking, more successful Ross you once knew was murdered by a bitter billionaire man-boy whose rocket ship exploded shortly after takeoff. Very unfair.

When I woke up this morning, for a few fleeting seconds before I remembered I was robbed of my precious, I felt happiness. Then it came sweeping over me like a tsunami of shame, that I am an unverified man with no weight to my name. My life is a lie and the status as internet nobility which once came with my Twitter handle has been forsaken. I feel like a laughingstock of polite society.

Lost. Afraid. Alone. Betrayed.

Perhaps my time is over, and I should wander the wilderness until buzzards peck my eyes from their sockets and worms take me home to the dirt from whence I came. At least then I would serve a purpose as buzzard food and fertilizer.

I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them…