I feel like I’m taking one step forward and two steps back.
Driving me insane!
Well, more insane than I already am, but you get my drift. *twitch* ;D
Someone took us to the movies this past week and I really liked the movie. Though it was dark and hopeless at times, the largest overtone and theme of the movie was hope. Basically, the perfect movie for me.
I left the movie and for the first time in a very long time (*ahem* years), I had
*that*
feeling.
The one I’m sure all creators know in some way or another.
It’s hard to describe, but I’ll give it a try.
It’s a good, excited, creativeness.
I feel alive. Vitally burning, arms flung wide, begging the world to hear me, to run through me, to guide me, to open me up and let me see again. Not just any world but that world, the one running like a stream through my head and heart, folded inside the contours of my soul. Where the strange and the broken but strong reside. All that I create. The world where I create, come up with ideas, scenarios.
And for one amazing moment, I can fly, I can soar, arms flung wide open to something better than me. Better than pain and all that’s wrong with me.
Where everything is perfect. Where I’m the child who escapes, the writer, the inspired creator who is both realistic and an idealist with her head in the clouds. The Unashamed Creator.
*That* feeling is where I can breathe. I’m passion blazing, where nothing can break me, inspired, confident. Enough. Where I am enough.
And I’m more than enough. I’m me. I can change the world, I can lift the broken and rid the streets of disgust and outrage of the wrongly powerful.
Everything was right as rain. Home.
I was home.
And then, I clamped down on it.
I’d reached the end of my chains and my conditioned behaviors yanked me back into “reality”.
SHUT UP, DAPHNE! Stop acting like a childish, loser. Get real. Grow up. Be in control of your emotions, feelings, thoughts, wants. None of this wishy – washy, head in the clouds, fantasizing. How stupid that you pretend like a toddler fantasizing in your head. How pathetic. Stand up, be rigid, in control. Be useful.
And the feeling – *that* feeling – it was gone.
I realized something right that moment.
I realized something that night.
It saddened me. Now I don’t feel anything in particular about it. But you’ll understand why in a moment.
ONE
I realized what I’m really doing by “clamping down” on my “useless emotions”.
I’m telling myself to stop feeling.
The part of me, which is in control, says “shut up, be real, stop dreaming like a child”.
It’s a smoke screen.
Be mean enough and I won’t poke at it, right?
In reality (ironic, right?), I’m telling myself to stop feeling anything. Except – definitely keep feeling shame and wrong for feeling.
When I clamped down on that feeling, I shoved all emotion away. If I look close enough, I can see just how numb I am to everything but pain and self-hate.
TWO
When I came home from that movie, something happened- and I have no idea what or how- that allowed me to get past my own walls, find a weak link in my armor, and get through to the life deep inside that I’ve forsaken to solitude and silence.
I found it. I felt alive. I felt real.
But then doubt niggled in.
And when I clamped down on it, a part of me deep down wanted to sob, cry out.
I’d ripped the fire inside out and flung it nowhere in particular. So long as I couldn’t feel its warmth.
I left myself hollow, empty. In pain. Numb.
FORWARD
I feel Blank.
No wonder I haven’t written a word, allowed myself to listen to music, or done anything mildly creative in over a month now.
I’m so numb I don’t even see it.
Even now, writing about it. It was only yesterday and yet I can’t remember what it felt like. I’m simply typing what I wrote in my journal yesterday. Eight hours after it happened I couldn’t even remember.
How did it happen? How’d it get through? Why?
I’d been particularly vulnerable yesterday, gummy, and easily harmed (enough to make me carry an ax and glare at everyone who came within three feet of me). So was it the vulnerability? Not having that armor up and in perfect condition?
Or was it the combination of darkness and hope in the movie?
Or both?
I don’t know.
But I consider yesterday a win. Not only did it somehow get through, but I recognized it for what it was, realized I’ve been (and continue to) smother any and all inspiration, and identified my need to STOP.
Not that it’s gotten me anywhere. But I have to realize I’m NOT going anywhere before I can START going somewhere. ……. Makes so much sense. 0.o
So, two steps forward and only one back.
Yay me!
________________________________
As a side note, I’m really not liking this being honest thing. It sucks, being vulnerable. Don’t like it. One bit.
So be nice to me.
Don’t blow rainbows up my skirt or throw bunnies at me, but don’t try to bash my head into the wall either.
I’ll stab you. Repeatedly.
😀
Any creative types know what on earth I’m going on about? What does “that feeling” feel like to you?
Anybody else feel stuck wobbling on the steps?
