Welcome to My Pity Party

It really IS hard to write from the dial tone. I just wanted to say that, to get it out there. I’m having such a hard time. I sit for hours, writing drivel, stuff that I can’t even stand to read, so I backspace, then write more drivel, then backspace some more. I wouldn’t be surprised to see I’d worn a groove in the back arrow key. I blame the medication, which I believe is responsible for the dial tone, in which there is simply no inspiration. I look back and see that my writing has lost its life, its fullness, its edge, right around the time the medication would have been fully kicking in. It seems too clear to be mere coincidence.

Or maybe the writing’s lost so much because somehow, unconsciously, I’ve started to censor myself. Be more PC. Don’t be such a downer. Try to look at life more from the positive. Count your blessings. And the big one, how can I possibly feel sorry for myself when so many people in the world are so very much worse off. God almighty, what a guilt trip.

Maybe I can’t write because what I really want to say is how fucked over I feel by life. Maybe I want to say that living in the dial tone, which has stolen my ability to feel, to write, to be inspired, to be inspiring, to pretty much care about anything, just flat out sucks. And maybe, if I weren’t censoring myself, I’d write about how unfair it is that my two choices seem to be the black hole and the dial tone, both with their own, unique, unending agony.

Maybe I’d want to say, if I were going to be totally honest, how completely wrong it seems that I took such risks, gave up so much, walked so consciously and deliberately into and through big losses and changes into the unknown, where I'd hoped to find more happiness, contentment, peace, and quality of life—only to find such darkness there. Way to show support, universe. Way to reward courage. Way to show me you give a fuck.

I’d probably write about how ripped off I feel that I've lost so much of my independence, and my ability to be alone. That the original pleasure I found in my new home has turned into anguish. That I'm going to have to go through so much to sell it... and then have no idea what I will do.

I might write about how angry I am. How cynical I sometimes feel. How bitterness might be knocking at my door and I’m too weary not to get up and let it in. But then that’s apparent isn’t it?

Maybe I’d write about the fear… the fear that in the big “this is my life” spectrum, in my personal life bell curve, I’ve somehow peaked, rounded, and it’s all down hill from here. The worry that I will never feel okay again, that I’ll never get a decent quality life back, that like an elderly person who falls or has surgery, who just can’t seem to ever recover; I am paralyzingly afraid I’m never going to recover.

Maybe I'd write about how hard it is to lose faith, and to no longer trust much of anything.

And yes, for the record, I do know that there are millions out there whose lives are so, so much worse than mine. Whose daily existence, whose hardships and tragedies make my current life look like a stroll in the park. And on the flip side, I’m also aware that there are others who have never experienced hardship or tragedy or loss pretty much at all in their lives.

It’s true what they say: your pain is your pain. Right now this is my pain. It's where I am, and so the only place I can be. To try to pretend otherwise not only doesn't serve, it flat out doesn't work. The choice seems clear. I either write what is absolutely, terrifyingly, narcissistically, gut-level true in the moment, or I don't write at all. I guess I'm not yet ready to throw in the towel.