epiphanies

i lost someone very dear to me a few months ago...not through death, but through some necessary life transitions.

that loss has affected me in ways that are just catching up to me now...ways i think he understood from the outset. but my reactions when it comes to our situation have almost always been delayed. i never envisioned my life without him whereas he had to consider it almost every day.

i took his presence for granted. so when he left me, it took me awhile to figure out why i just couldn't get right. i know now that those are the walls that have been closing in on me lately.

in many ways, he was the only thing keeping me from murdering my creative self. he loved her. he kept her going.

now that he's gone i have a gun back to her head, questioning her usefulness.

i'm in a position now where i have to learn to love her for myself, not for his sake. and that means facing some big fears and insecurities.

as honey told me, "you're not sitting at the feet of the master anymore".

i have to remember that i was who i was before i met him.

the split happened when i had to go to college and consider a "real job". before then, "writer" was an adjective i might have used as easily as "woman" or "black". but when i grew up, i began thinking of myself as someone who had to live in the "real world". there would be no surviving from "hobbies"...at least, that's what everyone told me. and since i didn't have a particularly artsy circle to draw from, i believed them.

when i met him, he nurtured and encouraged that side of me. even after our breakup. through the friendship, the fights, the disappearances...he fed me. we fed each other. he made me feel like an artist again.

and now that's gone.
i have to do it on my own.

i'm the type who needs that creative energy...at the very least, a partner...someone i can bounce off of, who can help me. i draw my inspiration from what's around me, from my interpretation of the world.

i don't suppose any writer can function in total isolation. but when our bubble burst, it destroyed the world that sustained me. i have no teachers, no other mentors. and i wasn't ready to step out on my own.

my creatrix has lost her bodyguard. and she's afraid of me.

i have to find a way to befriend and embrace her, pull her back into myself and love her.

without her, i can never be whole. and i'll never get back home.