My True Love

It is always unpleasantly surprising how willing I am to push aside my true love for menial, meaningless things. I get so wrapped up in the woes, travails, joys and drivel of my own life and completely disregard the one thing that has always gotten me through everything -- writing.

Lately, I've been full of regret, thinking back to a well-publicized time of my life (and by that, I mean that most everyone knows about it). A few years ago, during one of my last semesters of university, I had a pretty massive nervous breakdown in which I was sure that nothing I could do would ever be meaningful; nothing I could do would ever have any sort of impact on anyone, including myself. So, I threw away everything I created -- all my drawings, all my sketches, my paintings, my songs, my poems, all of the essays I had written for class -- everything. A few charcoal drawings survived the breakdown, but only because they were at my dad's house. Now, of course, I cherish those couple of drawings -- one of them even hangs in a frame -- because it reminds me of a time when I truly believed in what I did.

It's a drawing I titled "Spirit," maybe for obvious reasons. It's a constant reminder that, once upon a time, I allowed the spirit to move in me and, with its help, created.

I suppose it's a true statement that familiarity breeds complacency. I had been published a few times for poetry and photography, I won a couple poetry competitions, I had been told over and over again that my writings were of above average quality -- all of that affirmation gave me a pillow to rest on, and that pillow created a comfort about my work that I never should have allowed for. That pillow led me to become lax, lethargic and complacent about my work -- particularly my writing. And when I lost my zeal for writing, I lost my zeal for life -- my raison d'etre.

And I always come up with these feckless goals and resolutions, like "I'm going to write everyday. I'm going to write at least SOMETHING every single day." I go strong for about five minutes, then pick up a book or pop a Scrubs DVD in and sit in front of the television for the rest of the night. How much more could I get done if it weren't for these stupid, little things that, in reality, don't mean much of anything to me?