4 Years

It's the strangest feeling, writing again. Sort of like coming home in the you can't go home again way. None of it feels the same. Sure, it may smell the same and look the same, but something is different. Somehow, you're not the same. Maybe you're a little less angsty, a little more cynical, and a lot more sarcastic. You don't know everything anything, apparently. You've broken every promise you made to yourself: you've neglected to dream , you've forgotten to imagine, you've failed to create, and you've settled for reality. 

You don't belong here quite like you did before.

The blinking of the cursor on the screen is like seeing an old friend you haven't spoken to or thought of in years. You're welcome and the friend's welcome, but something is different; something has changed. It's familiar, to be sure. Comfortable? Not like it used to be. Easy? No. No, definitely not easy. Heartbreaking? You bet. 

Somehow, writing has become one bad simile after another.


Writing has taken on an off-putting persona, somehow. Almost threatening. Before I wrote the first entry for the blog, I was terrified. What if I had lost "it" sometime in the last four years? Okay, so I've written study after study and a thesis in the last four years (has it really been four years?), but that's not the writing I'm talking about. Academic writing has its place. Academic writing was challenging for me in a way that creative writing never was. That isn't to say that creative writing is lesser than academic writing, it's just that academic writing didn't come naturally to me. It took time and it took a lot of effort. And I suppose this was the tradeoff: it took a lot of time and energy, but it lacked emotion (for me, at least). It lacked true drive. It lacked true dedication. It lacked soul. To me, writing became a task rather than an art form for the last four years; it became something to check off the to-do list. And although I got the hang of it eventually, it wasn't the kind of writing I was ever passionate about.

But academic writing did become natural for me, and the truth is that I did lose "it." And that's the problem now. I don't know how to not be an academic writer (that's not to say that creatives cannot be academics - but I am was not that kind of academic). I don't know how to not write academically. The emotion and passion are gone - it's hard to feel anything at all when I am writing aside from emptiness. Empty words, empty thoughts. It all feels hollow. Superficial. Jagged. Fractured.

I used to think in stories, in plot twists, in prose. It used to feel like I had characters living in my mind who were screaming, tearing, scratching, begging to be let out. It used to feel like I wouldn't have enough time to get it all out on paper. It used to feel so natural, at times insane. But it was comforting. I could create something that was mine that no one could ever take away. Now it's silent. Now I think in facts, in sad news stories, in schedules. I think in terms of chores and obligations and weight loss. I don't hear anything anymore. At times, it doesn't even seem like I think anymore.

The "voices" (for lack of a better word) have gone quiet (someone is probably thinking this is great - I overcame psychosis) for some time now. I hear whispers every now and again. I see shadows out of the corner of my eye that indicate they are still there, somewhere. It's strange because at times they feel so close that I think I can point to a specific spot on my head where they have scratched and torn, where they are moving still, ever so slightly. At other times, it feels like they've been starved out. Like they've been malnourished. Like I ignored their cries. Like I let them die. Like I failed them.
So here's another macguffin, which should (hopefully) come naturally with each blog entry: to find those stories, plot twists, and characters wherever they may be. To find the passion. 

To find my voice.