Confessional

Channeling the happy thoughts

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Today was a rough day for me.  I was basically okay but had a case of melancholia.  I was very happy when my nap on the couch went by slowly and time didn’t zip through as it usually does. I woke up from my nap without a panic or anxiety so that was great! But I couldn’t explain this sunken feeling.

When I have the blues, if I can explain the source, I am more likely to ride the wave faster.  But I couldn’t pin this one down.

Usually, it is part longing for someone to be with me on lazy Sunday afternoon.  Part of it is loneliness and the tension of walking a space where I desire the alone time too.  Part of it is despair because I can’t figure our fast enough what I want.  Part of it is wondering if this is all that life has to offer.  Part of it is playing victim, part of it is fatigue, part of it is the neurotic brain, and part of it is… just exhausting.

And even after all that, I couldn’t understand why I had this feeling of emotional distress. I couldn’t journal it away. I couldn’t screen it away – you know, watch enough Netflix episodes of a show and put myself in a catatonic state. I tried a couple of empowering thoughts.  A half-ass attempt at meditation.  I tried to get into a quick HIIT workout.  But then there not enough that I could do.

And so I gave in to the sadness and waited for it to seep out of my pores.

It was a long day.

 

Changing direction

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So there are many life defining moments that a writer like me would bookmark.  The first time I read a book and was so moved by the emotions that little butterflies roamed my tummy and I had to catch my breathe.  The first time I felt emotions of love and adoration. The first time I was told that I was loved.  You get my drift…

But there are other firsts which are so significant that they change how you experience life and therefore how you express yourself.  I think I had one of those “Damascus” moments this year.  I want to write differently after this experience (no doubt will be a confessional post one of these days) and the only regret I have is that I hadn’t been writing consistently so that I could see the change.  I’m guessing it would have been awesome to see.

Nevertheless, I think because I have changed how I see life and a lot of my core beliefs have been challenged, my writing will change and indeed has changed.  I feel bolder and find it easier to access my voice.  And I had been searching for an authentic expression of myself for a while – so that’s a relief.

Anyway, I am happy that I am evolving.  Let’s see how it changes my stories.

New habits and hobbies

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I wrote in one of my other confessionals about the need to go beyond my own experiences in order to write about compelling and interesting characters.  Along with understanding my own limitations as a writer, this process of trying to expand my world view has actually prompted me to seek out new experiences.

I want to have new hobbies.  Of course music and reading and indie movies are at the top of my lovely things to do… but I am feeling like I need to get a hobby that promotes physical well being.  I am lazy dog owner which means that I outsource majority of my dog walking responsibilities.  But I would really love to do more with my dog.  So my big goal is to start walking with Pooch.  (You can meet my imaginary version of Pooch on this page – check out Today’s Special). I also feel like it will help me with health goals.

Then I want to explore a new take on music and create a collection of sorts.  And so I am thinking of getting a vinyl habit. I am still stewing on this because I need to have a plan for storage, care, and use.  I love my books and they have a system… I will need a system for the vinyls… but I am so excited to get started.

Then.  I have a secret wish to do roller skating.  Now I am a bit scared with this one but oh! how happy it would make me.  Just thinking about it makes my insides soar! I can see myself moving around and around – such graceful movements. If I was super aggressive, which I assure you I am not at all, I would be especially thrilled to seek out and join a roller derby team.

Maybe this exploration into new bits of me will give me new ways of seeing people and how they view the world.  Certainly how they see it all. By expanding my view of me, I could possibly discover others who I can draw into my world of writing.

Creativity and Discipline

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I am quite surprised, and I probably shouldn’t have been, about how closely related creativity and discipline are.  Growing up, I saw numerous images, movies, novels which cast the creative types – the artistes – in the light of the free-spirited and unstructured characters.  And there was almost always the subtext of unconventional equals indiscipline.

But yo! my own journey into channeling my creativity and expressing it suggests the opposite. It takes incredible discipline to do “your thing.” There is nothing simple about writing.  It takes dedication, habit, regimen, and continuous learning. Even as I dig deep to find a way for these stories to become more than thoughts and fantasies in my head, I am struck by the amount of time it takes to type shit out!

I realized – possibly this year more than any other time in my life – that I want to get better at writing and this requires a daily habit.   And while it is not very easy given work commitments, I finally reached a point where I had to make a decision on whether or not I wanted to be disciplined about this craft.  It takes effort to confront your thoughts on paper and be critical about them.  It takes strength and great honesty to be able to balance the innovation and the convention – because you won’t believe how many rules there are about good writing and bad writing.

It seems that I had a false belief about being a writer.  That it happened organically.  That you were either blessed with the gift or not.  That it is a life that found you.  That it was crafted in the stars.  That it was all supposed to click together on one fine day.  And when it clicked, I would have a book that I hadn’t struggled even one bit to writer.  That I would be so inspired by this story that I would write it effortlessly.  And just like that I would be a best selling romance novelist.  And while I am not ruling out such a scenario entirely, I think I have realized and accepted a simple truth: being a writer requires more than a fair share of self efficacy.  Like other great disciplines in my life, I have to work at it, put in the time, and my body/soul/mind will reward me with the welling up of beauty and the courage to share it with others.

There is no indiscipline in creativity and artistry.

Everybody’s story is delicious

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Sometimes I can be quite nosy.

As I have confessed before I love everything about love.  I enjoy hearing about relationships — between parents and children, siblings, lovers, could have been lovers, best friends who secretly wish that they were lovers — all those delicious little bits that reaffirm that love makes the world go round.  So… I can’t help myself when people tell me they’re married or dating or in a lifelong committment or not dating — I want to why, know when, how did it happen, what did you say, what did he/she/they say, and then… And for me, it’s like one delicious slice of red velvet cake.

And I keep these little stories with me.  Every so often I will refer back to them.  Visit the imagery in my head — hear the words, remember how the stories were told to me, how the teller looked, how their eyes moved, and what I felt when they shared… Sometimes to break up the conversations in my head or to occupy my bored mind.  Other times to enrich a story that I am writing or to give color to a character.

My confession today — these little stories also give me hope that the Big Love that I desire so much and long for so much will soon be mine as well.  Surely with all these wonderful stories going around, one day I will be able to have my own.  Hopefully, it will be about living it daily for a long, long time — instead of daydreaming or wishing or longing… delicious.

Starting and finishing projects

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I cannot tell you how many books I have started and never finished.  How many ideas pop into my head but never see the light of day.  How many things I begin but just never manage to see through.  It’s tough to look in the mirror and face this ne’er finisher.  Why is it so hard to give myself the gift of a dream realized?

I am probably a broken record with this thing. Or rather this not doing thing.  But it feels like I am on this treasure hunt, trying to find what is it that keeps me from doing the things that I want to do the most.

So I saw a therapist about this not doing thing.  I remember walking into her office and thinking, I really need a buddy system with this treasure hunt because sometimes walking the hallways of my mind can be difficult.  I get distracted by all the things I find in there.  There’s a broken heart in one corner, another dream or goal I didn’t achieve behind the springy couch over in that corner, and on and on and on. It really is not that difficult to get side tracked by all my other troubles.  And so, the therapist is my buddy.

Anyway, so I explain to my buddy that I have this not doing thing.   And I tell her how I feel often like I am walking through tar. Knee deep. Thick and sludgy. Dark and just hard to move through.  (I was particularly impressed by my imagery, by the way).

And then she said that the sludge was me.  I was the tar. I was in my own way.

One of the downsides of being low key self-absorbed and neurotic is that I am so intent on finding the big THING that is wrong with me.  That one that I will fix and then  *poof* all my problems (including nail biting) will disappear.  Like the not doing thing, the fixing the big THING is a lie.  There is not that one thing that I need to fix because, by virtue of being human, there is really not all that much that is wrong with me.  I share many of the same struggles that others do.  There’s a little fear, a little laziness, a little procrastination, a bit more fear, and other even more basic human flaws.

Self-sabotage is the lie that builds all these things up into obstacles that I must work and maneuver around.  I have to get out of my own way by minimizing this need to create problems where none exist.  And I have to be more positive and believing.  I have to have enough faith to go from start to finish.

Getting back on the saddle

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It’s been a long minute.  I haven’t written in so long.  Part of it has been life happening but most of it has been my head screwing with me.  As much as writing is fulfilling and the one thing I want to do all day — I am riddled with insecurities and sometimes, I get in my own way.  I get so scared of doing it wrong that I just stop. I paralyze myself and think of the one million ways I am not ready.

I now know the ins and outs of self-sabotage like nobody’s business.

In many ways, this blog is a confessional for me.  It allows me to get rid of the gunk and clutter that gets in the way of the juicier stuff that I want to write.  Sometimes though my mind can be like the bedroom of a hoarder — a huge mess.  And so getting to a place where I can shut off the noise is quite a task.  A task of ordering, cleaning out, dealing with, and putting in everything in the right place.

I suppose the task of writing will never be as straightforward as I would like it to be.  But I want to get better at moving through these neurotic rituals I have — the working through the gunk, the silencing of the naysayer writer, the emergence of the compulsive planner, the ever learning student, the short-lived debut of the positive and hopeful storyteller… and all those other things I do that keep me from my chief aim.

So this part of my journey is about accepting and cycling through my issues faster.  And hopefully the outcome will be better.

Writing the story my heart wants to tell

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So. Writing is a funny thing. It is part listening to myself and part daring myself not to listen to myself.  I find that it is somewhat difficult to stretch and take the risk of telling the story I want to tell.  Sometimes, I remember the books I have read on the craft of writing – and I cringe because most times my writing breaks those rules.  Sometimes, I am ashamed because the things I want to write about are singly about emotion and loving and longing and romance – and well, sometimes people say smart women should know better.  Sometimes, I find it hard to tear myself away from the thoughts that want to be written down.

I suppose the way to be a powerful writer is to be true to the inner voice that seeks to speak. And I have written before how this is an act of courage.  But then it is also a question of what makes writing powerful.  The stories I enjoy going back to read are those that have touched my heart in some way.  I find that the stories that I write that have the potential to leave a mark often come from a place of vulnerability.  I guess I have to keep writing to get comfortable with the idea of remaining exposed – and letting people into the deep space where the most intimate of the stories I wish to tell dwell.

Happy to be writing again

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This is a simple, happy post.  You know, there is nothing as encouraging as sitting my butt down and clicking away on my keyboard.

There was a time when this was such a hardship. And all I felt was guilt about not being able to write.  The self doubt was also quite real – how ca I be a writer who doesn’t write?  I was also overwhelmed by my inability to give myself over to the thing I loved most.  And of course, my troubled mind is terribly unforgiving.

There’s a reason cliches exist – they are often true.  And well, the one about doing the thing that you are passionate about is right.  Doing the thing that fills me gives me the strength to do the adulting that I should do.

I celebrate the liberty to write because it feeds my soul.  There is a lot I have to do that I must do… and this craft that I long to master like no other, fills me up for the long road that I must travel.

Growth

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One of my favorite musicians is Damien Rice. He sings from somewhere deep and well, I connect to that.  So in one of my favorite live albums, he talks about recognizing a strong relationship between his creative spirit and depressive state.  I mean, talk about the fringe benefits of melancholia.  He goes on to say that he is unsure of how he would continue touring because he really was not planning on being depressed.  But his audience could identify with what he was saying and there were chuckles all around.

I have been thinking a lot about Damien and this conversation because it speaks to one of the consequences of growth.  Growth means that we shift and move – we go beyond our artificial boundaries of comfort – sometimes, we are literally thrown into places we never thought we could move.  And suddenly, it’s as if this new environment is carrying us – and in my case, shifting my creativity along with it.

Not too long ago, I lived in fear of this experience.  I generally like things I can control – or situations that re-affirm my position of control.  Growth and change have been, in the past, quite difficult for me – maybe it’s all the flux that’s involved – but I think it is mainly the feeling that I needed to walk blindly for a while.

Because I am growing, I am encouraging myself to embrace the idea that I can trust myself to be in any space and to retain my creativity, my drive, and most of all – my self.

I remember when I first got Pooch, my fear was that I would not be a good enough dog parent and worse, that after a few weeks, I would grow tired of this creature that I had brought into my world.  I was surprised when actually my affection for this puppy grew. I was even more surprised when I shifted my lifestyle to accommodate him and all the feelings that I project on him.  (I even went as far as creating little rituals that allow me to feel like Pooch is living his best life, too!).  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I didn’t lose myself but instead that I expanded – that I was more. I had texture and dimension.

So I guess, for me today, growth is not about discomfort so much as it is about trusting myself.  Trust that I will be carried when I require, that I will expand when I need to, and that I will discover all sorts of pleasures when I allow myself to be more.

I don’t know how growth will shape my creativity as a writer and as a person in this year – but I am sure I will be more. And that is enough.