I Miss You

It's been too long.

It's been months, and even longer than that since my heart was in it. Years.

And I'm not talking about this blog, or any of the online communities I half-heartedly attempted to join, or any of that, although all of that was certainly collateral damage.

I miss writing. More specifically, I miss the feeling of wanting to write. The joy and exhilaration I used to get from putting the words down. Hell, there was a time when I couldn't concentrate on anything but the words. Not school, not work, not friendships- everything got pushed aside while I put on some Enya and punched out a chapter or four.

Now, even writing a letter feels like slowly peeling back my fingernails.

Just the act of typing this blog post is like a nightmare where a monster is chasing you and you're trying to run but your feet are lead and your legs are moving through air the consistency of Gramma's egg gravy. The monster is my own looming insignificance and normalcy. My legs are the last pathetic shreds of curiosity, creativity, and motivation. And I'm losing.

I'm getting married at the end of this summer. Just the first of several huge life changes facing me before this year is over. All of these things are things I want, things I've always wanted, things I've dreamed about my whole life. But they're normal things. They're time consuming, mundane, average things.

I didn't realize how much loneliness was benefitting my creative drive. I didn't understand how much I needed that frustrated drive for more. I hated my life. Hating my life propelled me to create hundreds of different lives to lose myself in. Now I love my life, and I don't want to be out of it. Not even for an hour a day. But that means I've lost hundreds of other lives. Hundreds of other worlds.

I miss the way a story used to grab me, wrap itself around me and refuse to let go. My head would be in a fog for weeks. I couldn't think about anything else. The details, the emotions, of the story, consumed me. I know now that the process of getting inspired is a lot like the process of falling in love- wonderful and terrifying and exhilarating, all-consuming, fueled by hormones and words.

There are a thousand remedies for writer's block. Power through, set a schedule, write something, get inspired. I have tried all of them. Powering through has left me with a lingering hatred for any kind of writing, so different from the buzz I used to get. Setting a schedule to write makes writing feel like going to the gym (in other words, something I loathe to the point of tears and will seriously consider breaking my own bones to avoid). Writing "anything at all" leaves me with a lot of diary entries, but nothing worth saying. And no matter how I chase it, inspiration refuses to be gotten. Anyway, getting inspired by something just ends up feeling like plagiarism to me now.

There's a pretty good quote I've read, although I can't find it now when I need it. It goes something along the lines of, "If you can do anything other than write, do that. Only those who can't not write have any hope of succeeding."  Turns out, I'm pretty good at not writing. I've been doing it fairly successfully for two years. And I've made a lot more money, a lot more friends, and a lot more progress in life by not writing than I ever did by writing. So I guess that means I'm not a writer. I guess that means I have to find something else for my life to be dedicated to.

But I miss it.

Maybe I'll always miss it. Maybe I'll always feel this gawping hole inside where something is missing. But I suspect my life will be full enough and busy enough to drown out that feeling. Writing and I will be like old high school friends who have nothing in common anymore, but still occasionally touch bases out of a misguided kind of nostalgia and guilt. And one day, just the way you realize a person who used to be one of your best friends now barely qualifies as an acquaintance, I won't miss writing anymore. It was just a phase. An adolescent daydream.

To any other writer out there who might be reading this, take heart. Just because this is my conclusion doesn't mean it will be yours. Keep writing. Keep believing. Be gentle with yourself- if you let your inner critic get too loud and too mean, your muse may get irreparably hurt and leave you. Don't listen to bad advice, but actively seek the advice of people whose opinions you respect, and follow it. Read good books. Make good habits. Put off quitting for as long as possible. With a little luck, you'll reach your goals before you have a chance to give up.

This is last time I'll be posting on this blog. I appreciate everyone who read my posts, who commented, who followed the prompts or responded to my writing. Thank you for reading.