Writing Ruts and Restlessness

I've always been one for the quick fix. Feeling restless? Go get a tattoo, change your hair, drive a different way to work. But the quick fixes, always short lived, seem to be a bit shorter lived than usual. This restlessness runs deeper than the tattoo needle, and seems to stay longer than the red in my hair. It clings to me, and reminds me daily that it exists and that the things that used to do the trick no longer possess magic. I am left in a state of irritation because everything that used to calm my stirring soul, even briefly, no longer worked. This feeling, once easily avoided, demanded to be dealt with. I can no longer avoid the inevitable sinking in my chest, or the consistent irritation that comes along with not being where I want, or not doing enough. I took some time and got to thinking.  

Maybe the quick fixes don't work anymore because it's finally time to start doing. To stop living in this version of myself and to move forward, begin building a new and improved version. Maybe instead of physical change, it's time for an emotional/mental one, time to use all I've learned in the past to really push my present self to be the best version I can be. But then the question comes about, how do I make that happen? How do I push myself into this change. Into being more active, learning something new, not letting life scare me. Not letting life allow me to take far too much comfort under the covers wrapped in the security of the man I love, avoiding any real productivity. I sit there and curse myself for not being further with my writing, or writing at all, but I don't even actively try to write anymore. 

There was one night, about a week ago I turned to Ryan, and through tear soaked eyes I asked him: "What if it never comes back?" 

I was and still am genuinely concerned that my lack of doing is going to allow for the love and passion towards writing to disappear, that one day I will wake up and not be able to produce a damn thing worth reading. That right there terrifies me. I recall, as he wiped the tears from my cheeks, him telling me that we would figure it out, together. That this was just a phase, and that writing is the heart and soul of what makes up who I am. I wouldn't be me without it, therefore, when I feel like I'm losing it/myself all I need to do is sit down and write. I laugh at that because if it were that easy I would be writing every day, creating things, and not cursing myself for the lack of creative content spilling from my fingertips. But in all honesty that statement is right. I feel that I forget that to get out of the rut, you have to write through it. 

I am a perfectionist, and that is one major thing that hinders my creative process. I am so obsessed with everything I produce being perfect, that the thought of even possibly producing something less than deters me from writing at all. For a while, I allowed myself to write crap, and then I worked with it. But I fell into the whole of perfectionism and I can't seem to find my way out. I find myself needing to sound profound, or craft sentences I want people to quote. But that isn't why I write. That's not it at all. I have always written for a sense of normalcy in my life. I write myself out of my head, and if I feel that it is something others can relate to, I release it to the world. But I have always written for me. So when did things change? When did I start writing for others, and stop writing for myself? 

This year will be another learning year. Just like the last, and just like those to come. I want to accomplish great things in 2017, and push myself to do things I never thought I could. But it all has to start here. Writing through the rut, finding the love for all that is creative once again, and really pushing myself to create. 

The only way out of the rut is through.
Bukowski said, "what matters most is how well you walk through the fire."
Well, the rut is my fire, and I begin this walk with my head held high, eyes to the sky.

Chin up.