So We are wondering when we will be better. We are wondering when we can stop pretending to be normal and actually are. Wondering when we won't be stricken with panic every time we attempt to work under routine, structure, and pressure.

Our plight as brilliantly plagued lunatics is that our creativity, like a small child, cannot and will not be controlled. It can only be redirected.

 

We are wondering how and when we will be free from the paralysis that our fear has created in our lives. Realizing that we know how to do alot of things a little bit well, we get good, we stop, we crash, we disengage. We are thinking in dichotomies, and trying not to. Old me/new me. good me/bad me. Our self-criticism keeps us trapped, locked, and unable to do the work we were meant to do.

 

We can't wait until we are "all better", when the "new me" will emerge from the shell and we can walk away from the past. But the fact of the matter is, We are good as We are going to get right here right now. When We are ready to better we will be. There is an internal mechanism that keeps us from using too many of our talents at once because we get overloaded. By putting our energies into appearances and a good impressions we soon bring in more opportunities than we can handle, and it frequently ends in failure and disappointment because we should be using those energies on the work itself.

 

Much like the mythical figure of Icarus flying towards the sun, many of us such strong desires to accomplish many things, and we have a guardian angel trying to hold us back, calm us down, keep us grounded, but our wings are so anxious to get up and flap in the sky.

 

Madness is blinding, sometimes all one can think about is getting there.

 

While basic mundane things like brushing our teeth and taking out the trash seem trivial in comparison to “real work” These small every day tasks are part of our grounding process, what helps us get back to center. On the other hand, one does not need clean teeth or even a “room of one’s own” to be able to create masterpieces, because if we are waiting for circumstances to be ideal before we are willing to excavate the ruins of our creative desires, we may find those ruins long decayed by the time our lives are perfect. And the truth is, it will never be perfect, our lives, like our creative endeavors,

Overwhelmed with ideas, love, passion, fury and rage, we get fired up and buy the illusion that we are invincible. And its not untrue, we can do everything, but not all at the same time.

 

So painstaking it is to start at the beginning and work our way up, gradually, building on our knowledge and skill base. we quickly abandon things because of our lack of attention span.

 

It hurts us deeply inside when we do this to ourselves , pull the carpet from under me, not allow our talents to flourish, to really thrive, to ebb and flow. Aren't we all deserving of a few things we are not only gifted at, but skilled? we say yes. Getting better means this - we pick up our guitar, and maybe last week we sounded better, maybe it didn't hurt our fingers to pluck when we was feeling ambitious, maybe we had a song we knew the chords to and it just went right through me, into the guitar, and today we feel like we should be better, like we should feel more excited, like the guitar shouldn't feel so uncomfortable. But thats a whole part of the process. Sometimes we have regressions when we stand still too long, sometimes we have momentum and it feels like it is unlimited in every respect. Sometimes we don't talk to our friends for weeks, months at a time. It doesn't mean we don't love them, it doesn't mean we don't care, its just part of our process. So these are the gifts. Movement. Stillness. Awareness. Understanding. Desire. As long as we are wanting something more, we will gravitate towards that, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Progress is not a linear process, it wanes and weaves and overlaps, its a rare occasion to be able to track such a complex and multi-dimensional thing such as our own healing, with charts and summaries and numbers and even words. We are not always the best judges of the speed of our path to healing, but it is seldom the case that we aren't aware of the impact it has on our lives, even during times of stagnation. So are we better yet? There is really no easy answer to this, only the knowledge that as long as we are not resisting it, the change we wish to see will happen in time, and that for many of us, thats really all we need to able to continue to do the next right thing.

 

 

This piece was inspired by Julia Cameron’s “Walking in this World.”

 

Reese is an aspiring musician, artist, and writer. She lives with her son in Pittsburgh, Pa.