Oftentimes when I sit at the computer to write a paper for school, I do so with the hope that the words, sentences, paragraphs will just spew forth from my brain and be translated by my fingers pecking away on a keyboard, forming intelligent thoughts, ideas and analyses, written eloquently, that will earn me that coveted A.
Of course, more often than not, this is never the case. There was one time over the last semester that I was able to bust out a four page paper in a little over two hours but it was on poetry and this particular poet spoke to me and I enjoyed taking the few poems I had selected and dissecting them stanza by stanza and line by line, much in the same way that I might a favorite song. Why can’t it always be that easy?
I’ve been stuck lately. I’ve hit a wall and I don’t know how to get over it, around it or break through it. It’s painful. It leaves me with no motivation, no inspiration and a crippling fear; I do everything I can to avoid sitting at the computer, staring a blank Word screen. Time ticks by and it’s still blank and there is still no inclination to write. But I am running out of time, as with writing school papers come deadlines. It’s starting to cause anxiety and maybe even depression. I’ve found myself sleeping more just to avoid even trying to get up and write. My motivation to do anything remotely productive is slowly but surely dwindling. All I keep wondering is why?
Sometimes I feel like I’m two different people. There’s the happy girl that’s always down, always laughing and can roll with the punches and then there is the one that’s quiet, a little melancholy, that gets lost in her thoughts and sometimes has a rough time getting back to Earth. These two are in a constant, delicate balance for the most part–a perfect limbo, but there are times that I seem to regress and instead of looking forward, I tend to look back. And rather than looking back in appreciation, I look back with a lachrymose longing. I look back on my former life as if it were a dream–and not one that I was ready to wake up from–and I miss so much about it. The wheels start turning and the memories start pouring down. To top it off, I’ve had those suffocated, trapped feelings once again. It can be a dangerous combination.
So does all of this make me crazy? I’m hoping it just makes me normal. It’s just part of growing up. It’s just… life. Right? I can’t be the strongest, happiest girl all of the time and for whatever reason, it pains me to admit that. I figure I just need to stay focused; although currently I’m having a hard time figuring out how to do so…
But as my dad would say to me, “It’d kill an ordinary girl.”
goodnight, rose 