Finding Inspiration

There’s a missing link to this chaos. I have been struggling for days. My muse pulling at me, tearing me to pieces. My phone was too small to type. My laptop too big, and I couldn’t find the energy to write it all down. I forgot about my iPad – small enough for my fingers to flow over the attached keyboard, and big enough for my straining eyes to see.

Strange, is it not? You think it is just laziness or the drive is gone, but in reality, in your own reality, it was your muse saying it needed a newer yet older way to transcribe the madness. “GIVE ME WHAT I NEED!” my muse screams at me from its ever shrinking cage.

It has been a while. I’ve been around, just not here. I’ve been everywhere, in fact, but not where I really wanted to be. It is frustrating to know you have all the stories in your head, but no time, no energy to succeed. You scroll through all the social media outlets of people who work, have kids, and a life and somehow manage to write novels and post about it. Then I wonder why I can’t. Why do I struggle?

There isn’t a groundbreaking answer. There isn’t a cure. There isn’t hope to give.

It comes in waves, I suppose.

Then it came to me one day, at work, as a friend told me she was leaving because it was all for the best. She’s an artist too, full of life, funny, and has a great energy. The conversation came to our type of work and how if you weren’t careful, it would suck the life right out of you. She says to me, Don’t let it take you.

But it does. I fight what I can. I write while I’m at work, slaying the demons who live to make me old. I keep thoughts in my head until I am able to write them out. But somehow, I lose the will to achieve my goals when I reach my home, a place where I should be free to give it my all. Though my home is not what I would like it to be – sometimes there’s no solace and the stress creates a fog of anxiety and I can’t breathe. And I think, if I lived alone, it would be different. A huge part of me thinks it is true. Another part of me thinks I am finding yet another excuse.

So I sit, and let my phone waste my time. I let work waste my time, and I let people waste my time. And I say, there’s never enough time.

Then, I wonder if I were to choose to stay at home and write, would I be free of all those time wasters, would my muse stay by my side, feeding me creativity to sustain? Or would I settle into my habits I have created? Work may often take my muse, but she is strong. It is I who neglect her. I waste all my energy on trivial tasks when I could be creating. She’s the sad animal left to die, but hanging on to a hope the owner will come back to bring the life it desperately needs.

I fight for my muse, but sometimes, the excuses win, the mental health issues win, sometimes, life wins.

In this life, I know if I want to win, I must care for my muse the way the Universe intended.

I am a writer, a creator, an artist, and to let those things die, to let my dreams burn to ash is a crime I cannot commit.