3 Years Ago archive #1
Almost exactly three years ago, November 2020, I wrote this. I was feeling anxious & desperate & hungry to see myself new. I was in Oregon, it was snowing.
But It Is 3 Years Later, So Things Have Changed a Bit.
November 30th 2020
I’m sitting now, wondering how to best funnel my creativity and stop this feeling I have - like sitting on a boiling pot. Like I’m stewing on an idea that I can’t fully form. But there is no “one” idea. There are avenues of creative expression that I could take or not. I’m failing to not only choose but to try any of them! Fig Tree much? I’m at Bryce’s apartment right now. Our job is over and winter is coming, which means I’ll have to leave soon.
Unless of course, he wants me to shack up with him and his mother, which I fucking DOUBT. Whatever. It just means I have to decide what to do next. And most of what I truly deeply want is to pursue my creative dreams.
I think when it comes to being creative, it is the execution of which I struggle. How to present something with creative innovation. Wanting to do something new and fulfilling and attention-grabbing. But why does that matter so much to me? What does that even look like? It does not look like sitting on my phone for hours and lamenting about what I could be doing. Not that I’ve been doing that lately but I’ve definitely prone to spiraling into that methinks.
When laying down is kicking my ass it’s like DAMN doesn’t the longing to create win over that?! It used to - to an extent.
I lack motivation. But it also isn’t so simple. My motivation hurts from being depressed, but it just becomes increasingly hard for me to excel, which I think is where a lot of people get the satisfaction they’re looking for. In excellence.
And it becomes hard. I know these feelings must be sooo typical of the human experience, but that is not as comforting to me as it once was. I’m now fixated on the fact that I should be in another position life-wise.Another place. Sometimes certainly. Like it’s wrong that I’m here, now.
It is also increasingly hard for me to focus. Lately, as I experience this, I beg the question - when has focus aided me in my life and endeavor? Which might sound like pretentious or bogus, but really think about it. Real focus, intensive focus that I can feel.
I can say anytime I’ve been in a play or a show - the necessary focus has needed to show itself and yes, benefit me in that job. Seems as if I can better focus when an audience is involved hmmmm.
But otherwise - where can I attribute focus to my success? It sounds silly. Of course, you have to focus to accomplish anything. But you know what I mean. When I’m acting, it’s a different kind of focus. One that keeps demanding my attention. But I haven’t been doing much of that since I left New Jersey, so what can I even do yet to practice? A lot surely, but IDK.
Maybe up until this point, I’ve been motivated by passion and whim, and thus only have to intermittently focus, by default almost. It is an area I lack. But I will say, that focus is also something - along with self-discipline - that I have been able to harness very well. To finish a task or even a project. Although, there’s been a big time lapse in proof. I used to do vows of silence for days. I made myself write daily until I had finished a novel! But now that feels like forever ago.
I have not proven by many if any recent circumstances that I can complete a creative project in a fixed time frame. Or even, dare, I say, any time frame at all. I haven’t nourished a passion project in a fat minute - and I don’t know where exactly to fix that. A writing project surely. In the majority of my creative projects and fantasies, I often end up at the same foundational road block which is that I need newly written material to go off of. (*Note from 2023- This is of course, not true.)
At least to start and for now... Because the most present version of myself always knows what I want to hear and see.
And I know I’m capable regardless, of writing when I feel no other spark of inspiration. I just have to keep writing what I want to see. And I will, but the bottom line is that I’ll just have to keep writing. (*Beginning to get it. And as I reread, I replace “writing” with anything I want to do.)
I’ll always get somewhere.
A Few Days Later, I flew back home, out of Bryce’s apartment, and I wrote,
Let Go Of Guilt Or You Won’t Accomplish Anything!!
(*And that’s right! I smile to myself now and say “That’s right.”)