voiceless, part 2

After rereading my prior post and going over my friends’ replies, I am certain now that it wasn’t my freelance writing that got me into this rut. It’s not even specifically what’s keeping me stuck anymore: it’s just the paradigm that my writing mind has been defaulting to for lack of any other options.

The reason why I ran out of options is, well, I chose to.

Back in the first quarter of 2008, I went through a crisis that left me with a great deal of disappointment and disenchantment. As I tried to come to terms with what happened, I retreated into myself. I pulled away from my regular crowd at the time, and I kept my thoughts and feelings to myself and a very select few. I needed to gather my wits and recover my sense of self-worth, because they were effectively mangled by what I went through.

Over the course of 2008, I did manage to heal and move forward. My freelance work picked up, as did my social life. What I didn’t get to restore, however, was  my willingness to open up in my writing and in terms of my online presence. This blog went dead for most of 2008, as did my Facebook account. I’d add to my Multiply account on occasion, mostly photos from the social events I’d go to, but not anything of narrative or expository substance.

I understand with better clarity that I have been consciously maintaining a certain perspective for these past months: stay quiet, don’t bother, keep everything low-key. We all go through cycles where we are very open and sociable one day, and then quiet the next, but my cycle got stuck. I chose to stay closed off instead of trying to break out of the shell I had put myself in. The healing process I started had become a harming process by virtue of the reclusive habits I had developed.

The first quarter of 2009 hasn’t been very kind to me, and I’ve been feeling the desire yet again to just close up shop. It’s really tempting. But the more I think about it (at leat when I’m not exhausted or otherwise in a dark mood), the less sense it makes to me to just clam up again. What would the point be? What would I stand to gain by running away, metaphorically or otherwise?

Back in 2008, I did have something to gain by closing up: withdrawal from the situation that hurt me, so that my wounds could heal. In 2009, though, with my own voiceless writing adding to the stress I’m working through, I think closing up again is a bad idea. I’d just eat myself alive, confining myself to my own thoughts and feelings, not learning anything new other than ways to wallow and be depressed.

Enough.

I’m tired of feeling bad, and I’m tired of feeling reclusive. I need new things in my life. New experiences, new joys, new sensibilities. I’ve already started revising the way I do things in person; it’s about time I carried the impetus over into my writing.

~ by quinnzap on March 31, 2009.