Ideas feel so shiny and vast when they first sprout in your brain— like you could press your hands together in the praying position, lift them above your head, and dive right in. Then swim forever. The lines just keep diverging, splitting and breaking off into the new, and for once, you feel like you’re good for something again.
Elizabeth Gilbert said that ideas are alive and that they are their own entity themselves, separate from us but able to interact with us. They float around in their own realm, knocking on the doors of human collaborators to bring them to life in our world. Ideas can only manifest with the effort, openness, and willingness of its collaborator. When you’re too occupied with your mundane realities and aren’t able to accept the idea into your life, it’ll eventually wave goodbye and move on to the next person.
All of this to say— I’m feeling really odd today. Since I started writing more seriously, this is the longest break I’ve taken from it. What started as a quick break to recuperate from the most exhausting writing process I’ve ever been through has become something that’s spanned months longer than it was meant to be. And when I think hard about it, I realize it has nothing to do with a lack of ideas. In fact, there have been so, so many. Rather, it’s owed to my own carelessness and inability to nurture these ideas, bring them to fruition. I sat down to write today and the ideas that felt so lush, gorgeous, and green, suddenly were rusted. I can’t tap into them anymore.
And now, something really weird is happening in my brain. I feel sad because I’m almost… grieving these ideas I loved so much. They feel so, so far away from me. They’re not mine anymore. I sit down to try to work with them and it’s like going somewhere entirely foreign. Me being the dramatic, sensitive person I am: I’m so down because of this!
I can’t lie and say that I haven’t been busy. For the first time, my life feels like it finally makes sense. I know what I want and what I need. And that took a lot of hard work. I was putting all of my energy there, so there really wasn’t much leftover to be used towards my writing (which takes up so much of me. When I’m writing, it feels like my soul is 75% comprised of the piece.)
I miss it, I miss it so much! I wish I didn’t get so much in my head about things and I wish I wasn’t such a perfectionist. Now that so much time has passed, I have the deep seated urge to come back with something outdoing myself even more than usual which is so silly, I know, but it’s how my brain works.
I’m going to try to pull new things out of me, really work hard at it. I’ve understood that if you keep waiting for the perfect time to write, it’ll never come.
I don’t do this much but I just had so much to get out of my head! I love you guys thank you for not forgetting about me x
