A friend shared this video on Facebook today and I am in love with it. [Make time for you.]
The Elusive Age.
I wish I knew what this thought meant, but I have no way to articulate it, except to repeat it over and over again. I want something new. Am I thinking clothes? Or house decor? Or a new design for my blog? Or a new haircut? Or… (_fill in the blank?_) No, it’s deeper than material things. I wish I knew what it meant. And why.
Perhaps it’s an emerging pattern of nostalgia. Every year at this time I remember that I spent a Fall in Europe wandering and reading and writing and learning to my heart’s content. You can take the phrase ‘travel bug’ literally. It’s an itch that must be scratched and when you don’t it gnaws away at your thoughts, convincing you that if you could just go someplace new, everything would be better.
But am I now incapable of being happy where I am? I am happy. I have a wonderful husband and a good job doing something I actually like, and I have a great group of friends and family. I just have this restless feeling. Like I’m waiting on an elusive “new”, an elusive “better,” an elusive “different”, and I don’t know when or where or how I may find it.
A lot of people my age feel this way. A lot of people who were once my age felt this way, and they either did something great or resigned themselves to the waiting and the wanting. How will I deal with it? How will my friends deal with it? Our days aren’t meant for biding our time or waiting for something to come to us. We’re meant to reach out and grab hold of what we want. But what if we don’t know what that is? How do we find out what it is? What is the “great” that we might do? I’ve just asked a lot of big questions, many of which may not be answerable. It’s better than not asking, though. It’s better than not contemplating what it is we’re doing. I found this quote the other day, and I really hope that I can find a way to live up to it, and that my peers do, too. I have a feeling that this is what we want, and what we are most afraid of.
“What we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.” -Eleanor Powell
Restless Writer.
Today is my ritual Writing Saturday. I’m at Starbucks, all by my writing self and a goooood cup of coffee. And I’m enjoying it… sort of. I have a lot of thoughts rolling around and none of them are very helpful. After a long, busy, roller-coaster week, I have nothing to show for it – at least not in terms of my writing.
Last Saturday I felt the same way. I wrote a solid 1,500 words, but none of what I wrote is anything that I would inflict on others. Now I sit, coffee in hand, listening to the friendly but distracting sounds of the cafe and I question, Did I come here this morning for the coffee or the writing? I might have just pulled myself into a bad writing habit by coming here instead of sitting at home in the quiet.
I know that’s not the only thing bothering me, though. I feel stumped. Uninspired. Frustrated. Displaced. Like something I once had is now gone; I feel the void, but what is it exactly that I’ve lost? I’m just wondering, for you writers and bloggers out there,
When you feel like something is missing in your writing, how do you find it? I have a feeling that many of you will say, “I keep writing.”
Thank you. That was very helpful. But how do you subdue the anxiety that accompanies the sense of aimlessness?
Truth be told, I feel bored with my writing self. Possibly, I am bored with my self self, and it’s infringing on my writing self. (Am I helping or hurting my writing by separating my writing self from my whole self?) When I become restless with my writing, it often feels like I’m talking my writing self down from the ledge. Don’t be so over-dramatic. The thing you’re missing? It will come back to you. Just be patient. Wait it out. Write it out. And then, my self-self gets frustrated. I am talking to myself. I am insane. I’m the crazy writer girl that’s going to start wearing all white and never leave my house. Or I’ll wind up sticking rocks in my trench coat pockets and wander into the river. Or stick my head in an oven and inhale deeply until the unhelpful thoughts go away…. See what I mean? It would be great if I could actually be satisfied with my writing self before the end of my life. (Disclaimer: I’m not actually suicidal. I just find it sad and amusing that so many great writers never recognized their giftedness.)
I know I’m not alone in this, so tell me, how do I talk my writing self back from the ledge? How do I break the cycle of unhelpful thoughts? Advice, please. For now, I’m going to keep working on an unfinished writing project from a few weeks ago and hope that it yields something reader-worthy….