October 5, 2024

I've been gone a long time, and I'm afraid to dip my toes back into the water.

Writing is very difficult for me now. I haven't been doing a lot of it, if any of it at all, and it is as though I've completely forgotten how.

Part of it is being perceived. While it's enjoyable, and addictive even, to have supportive people reading and complimenting my work, it's also slightly debilitating. It causes this irrational fear in me that if I don't post something better than the last thing I posted, then none of this is worth it. Which I know, rationally, is the furthest thing from true.

In addition to the eg0 driven fear I possess, I feel as though every creative fiber of my being has been whisked away by some unknown force of nature. I don't know what to write about. There is no creative wind that speaks to me as clearly as I feel it used to. Forces are no longer whispering into my ears, encouraging me to weave words into themes into stories. I yearn for the days when creativity would strike its arrow into my temple and the letters would flow out of me; my fingers a never-ending fountain of ideas.

When I try to pinpoint that space my mind used to reside in, it's as though I'm looking into a stranger. Even stranger still, I'm aware that I haven't changed as much as I'd like to think I have.

So what am I doing now? If not writing, how are my days being spent?

About 50 - 60 hours a week, I sit in front of a corporate-owned computer, attending meetings, analyzing data in spreadsheets, and putting on a show for a team that thinks I have my life together. I lead meetings with hundreds of people and answer uncomfortable questions on the spot, and with ease. And then I spend my nights panicking, once again, at how I'm being perceived. The shill of a man.

On paper, I'm sure my life seems idyllic. I own property with a home in which I get to work from. I have four dogs and eight chickens with fields to roam. I have a wonderful, kind, intelligent five-year-old son, who never fails to impress me every day. I have a best friend I get to spend my life with, laugh with, and cry with all the same.

And still, there is a hollowness within me. Sometimes debilitating, incapable of getting out of bed. I often forget I have a body and feel like floating consciousness instead. Endless waves of chatter that never shut off and never know what to say to make me feel better.

I haven't made the effort to edit my book in months. I lack the courage to make the effort to query more agents. I can't even sit down and write a poem that I deem worthy of acknowledgment. I can hardly keep my house clean; forget about the laundry. Oftentimes all I want to do is sleep, and even that doesn't come easy.

I'm on medication, and I take it religiously, but I can't seem to get past this feeling of apathy. Not depressed, nor very happy, some sick, sinister thing lying somewhere in the middle. More like machine than man; steady on autopilot waiting for each day to turn into the next on repeat.

In an effort to force myself out of this funk, I'm going to force myself to write and see what happens and see how long it takes to breathe life into myself again.

I'm not going to force myself to write anything creative or meaningful or even good. I'm just going to treat this like a journal that no one else will see and see what may come out of it.

Knowing me, I'll probably just post this and disappear again for months on end. But it doesn't hurt to try.