I Won't Give Up On Myself.

A little life update.

All this white space makes me nervous. I’ve started and stopped a hundred times in the last 20 minutes and still have nothing on the page. At one point I closed my laptop and let out a guttural cry like a freak rainstorm, the cloud descended, the drops fell from the sky, and then as soon as it had came it lifted. But now, I’m determined to use these next 10 minutes to tap into my creative flow, that sacred space where anything is possible.

I have been neglecting my writing for weeks now, unable to formulate any words due to a prolonged and heart wrenching situation. As a result, I’ve put a hold on the fiction love story I started a few months ago and simultaneously withdrew from a novel writing course I had enrolled in. I miss my main characters, Ren and Theo, and think about them constantly, willing them not to leave my imagination. Please don’t go. I want to see how your story unfolds, I whisper to them.

Every night before I go to bed, I curl up under my white cotton blanket and utter the same phrase to myself, Please stay here. I want to see how your story unfolds.

Instead of floating somewhere above my body, scared to face my current reality, I make a conscious effort to feel everything. This is the only way I know how to stay with myself. Whether it’s sadness or grief, joy or excitement, my emotions are the paintbrush, the way to bring color back to these wide, white spaces of overwhelming possibility.

And maybe that’s why I’m nervous, because I can feel myself slipping, not just from the story I’m writing, but from the story I’m living. Ren and Theo are still there, lingering in the quiet corners of my mind, just like I am, hovering at the edge of something tender and unfinished. I’m scared of giving up on them, but even more scared of giving up on myself.

So tonight, I’ll whisper it again, to them and to me:
Please stay. I want to see how your story unfolds.