Finding My Way Back to the Writing Desk
I think I lost my way a little while ago, in terms of who I am.
I got stuck in the trap of “wanting to be somebody”, and got bogged down in all of the virtual clutter and real-world anxiety that comprises ambition. I could feel it in my heart, the stress, the sensation of being less than.
I think they call that “imposter syndrome” in academic circles.
And I have felt like an imposter. I’ve felt — in the last year especially — that something of myself was lost in a traumatic experience that had happened then, and I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to find it again.
I even did that thing where I start giving people elevator pitch style summations of my future plans, as though doing that to them — which I’m sure was very annoying — would make me feel the self-respect I desperately wished those people could feel for me. I wanted the emptiness inside of me gone, but a void cannot fill a void as I’ve learned by trial and error.
It’s even more difficult when that emptiness you’re trying to stack into the void you feel inside does feel full, but ends up being as weighty as the air in a helium-filled balloon.
In the end, I was still very ungrounded.
But recently, while revising my website and looking through its pages for retroactive inspiration, I ended up scrolling through the publications on my amazon author’s page and one thought occurred to me while looking at the six books I’ve already published: I can write more.
I talked to a man on X.com who claimed to have written twenty-two novels, and while I had been skeptical at the time, I recognized in this moment that the virtual world offers a near limitless supply of space in which to explore creatively.
While I have been sitting on this next poetry book, staring now and again at the table of contents as though it would rearrange itself on its own into the most pleasing permutation of poems (sorry about the alliteration, I couldn’t resist), this author’s page has been sitting, gathering dust and waiting for me to fill it with all of my esoteric and inane ideas.
Case in point, I have been doing myself a disservice. I am a poet. A writer. An artist. I’d been getting so lost in schemes to get popular to get monetized to get etc. etc., that I hadn’t actually been investing in myself creatively. I hadn’t been looking for poetry slams to attend or writing circles to be held accountable by, I hadn’t been writing as a daily practice and I certainly haven’t been writing with designs to publish.
Worst of it is, I don’t know why. I almost want to justify myself to myself, as though that will lessen the self-imposed guilt that comes every time I skip a writing session. But maybe it’s better this way. Maybe it’s better that I don’t have any excuses to tell my reflection in the mirror. Less mental clutter to wade through.
In the silences left by that lack, there is only time to start again. Like drinking perfectly filtered water, the taste of time to hear myself think words onto paper without artist’s remorse creeping in is so unexpectedly delicious.
