Stuck

Sometimes I feel terrified to pick up a pen. Not for the fear of what might come out, but for the fear of what might NOT come out. How many times a day do we censor, edit, criticize or judge? I keep waiting for just the right inspiration to strike my brain. Just the perfect topic on which to attune my scrawl.

It feels as though I’ve lost the ability to pay attention and to be inspired. Like all of those life-sensing pores that, in the past, seemed to have had a direct connection to my soul, are starting to resemble a teenager’s acne-prone skin prior to Biore Strips: Black and blocked.

I just don’t feel that much right now and I sure as hell don’t write about all that I am not feeling. Truth be told, I’m depressed at the moment, but nobody talks about being depressed. We just keep on smiling until it hurts our cheeks. There are all of these amazing things happening to me and yet, it is winter inside. Cold. Frozen. Numb. Like a bad outbreak of Raynaud’s Syndrome.

Realistically, I can conceptualize the good stuff, but that only makes me feel guilty for being depressed, which then adds fuel to the fire and I sink just a little bit lower.  Like inexplicable, belly-racking, down-on-my-knees sobbing in the middle of a Master Chef marathon. That kind of messiness.

So how do you create the thaw? Do we ride out these moments like a surfer duck-diving through the trough of a wave, knowing that soon enough the current will lift us up again? Do we try to jump-start inspiration the way a distributor cap throws voltage to the spark plugs to Get. This. Motor. Running?  Do I book a vacation to a far-off destination, buy a sports car and start dating 24 year-olds?

I suppose that, like a teenager in the throes of puberty, this is just growing pains. There is a lot of new information being thrown my way; challenges that somedays seem insurmountable; relationships that force me to dig deeper to find my confidence, trust and all of that other horseshit, although really it seems way easier to tuck into a cave someplace where I can let my armpit hairs grow into dreadlocks.

These are the moments when my first impulse is to run. And with a new car in my possession, I think about hightailing it somewhere. Anywhere. All of the time.

Life is not easy, folks. Not for anyone.  Finding the balance between need and want, influence and authenticity, trust and scrutiny is an every-day, constant battle.

I am good at running. What I am not good at is staying put. For the long haul. Owning up. Facing the music. And when you repeat patterns for a certain amount of time, and they consistently don’t work, when is it time to change?

I’m not sure when the tears will stop leaking from the corners of my eyes. But I know that they will. Growing pains hurt.  And create stretch marks.

So in the meantime, I will plant my feet firmly in the ground, pull my shoulders back, lift my chin and gaze straight ahead.

I am not going anywhere.