a little bit lost

I feel like I'm losing myself. I'm not sure where I went, but I can't quite find myself again.

I've always said that I met myself during my travels and, if that's true, maybe it becomes easy to lose oneself when you stay stagnant. I haven't really traveled in a long time. I'm not talking about my trip to California, I'm talking about truly traveling, experiencing somewhere new, meeting a new place and tasting its cuisine. I miss sitting in a foreign cafe, drinking some local tea or coffee, listening to live music, and soaking in the pure, raw experience.

But beyond that, I don't really do anything that I love anymore. Not personally anyway. I never write, I hardly ever take photos. I used to wander the streets taking photos of anything I spied, coming home to an impossible amount of film to sift through. I took photos on my vacation, but hardly any before or since. I don't ever write anymore, blogs or essays or poetry.

I don't create with words. Hell, I don't create anything. I suspect my creative muscle is atrophying.

I barely recall the last time I danced.

So if what you do is who you are, who am I? Am I someone new? Someone who can't bring herself to just create something, anything?

Where are the streets to wander and why don't I look for them? Where are the hours of sublime nothing, spent only with earbuds and a camera or a book and a cup of tea? Where are the minutes of delicious inspiration? Why did I let that go and how do I find it again?

When people ask me about myself, especially at work, where folks are all about the numbers and the selling techniques, I say, "I'm a creative." It's what's essential to the core of who and what I am. But can I honestly say that anymore...when I don't actually create?

All I know is it's causing me pervasive sadness, sadness that creeps in when I least expect it, ruining whatever happy moment I'd been enjoying, as if I'm grieving some friend who died too young. I resent myself for letting this loss happen. I feel immense guilt at just watching this girl waste away and doing. absolutely. nothing.

Nevertheless, I just sit here, motionless, somewhere beyond apathetic.

And yet.

And yet.

These thoughts ran through my head tonight over and over, like a long train that just won't end, and, instead of pushing them aside in favor of sweet, sweet sleep, I got up, pulled out my laptop, and wrote.

Duh, you snort, with the disdain of a thirteen year old.

You know I wrote. Obviously. But I haven't done that in a long time, chosen to write instead of whatever else beckoned me. I stopped and I wrote. I laid my thoughts to paper and I created.

That has to be a start.