Writing Martyrdom

I have become a writing martyr.

A bit of backstory on my newly acquired affliction: I recently moved grudgingly back to Southern California from my personal paradise of Colorado. There really aren’t sufficient words to describe how much I love Colorado and in turn don’t love California.

As a great man once sang, “You can’t always get what you want…”

Life has a funny way of not giving you what you want and then sitting back and watching how you deal with it. Yes, life can sometimes be a total asshole.

Well, I’m not really proud of how I have been dealing with this unwanted upheaval. I’ve shutdown emotionally and I haven’t been a lot of fun to be around. I’ve holed up in mostly seclusion and wallowed.

Until a couple of days ago I hadn’t written one word. I believe(d) and told myself only Colorado inspires me. I can only write while looking out at the whispering pines and majestic mountains with the lulling sound of the river nearby.

For the past three weeks I told myself daily, “I can’t write here!” and I didn’t. The Writing Martyr was born.

Today I came to the conclusion my martyrdom is only hurting me. You, my dear readers, will not miss my writing. You’ll just move on.

The person most affected by my not writing is me. Putting myself in solitary confinement and removing one of the things I truly love doing – writing, has only hurt me.

I miss the feeling of my fingers flying over the keyboard as my thoughts take life. I rarely share my feelings by talking, I’m an introvert to the extreme. The best way to truly know me is to read what I write. Even my fictional short stories, with no basis in reality, tell you how my mind works.

When I start writing a piece, I truly have NO idea where it will end up. I love the feeling of not knowing who’s in control – my mind or my rapidly typing fingers that seem to work faster than my mind. Who’s controlling them, if not my mind?

I know for the last three weeks of my Writing Martyrdom I’ve been controlling them. Willing them into not typing, even when thoughts would pop up demanding to be noticed. My “I can’t write here” turned into “I won’t write here”. And I stubbornly didn’t.

Why I would punish myself is another issue entirely.  We can delve into that aspect of my nuttiness another day. For today, I just want to scrape off my martyrdom and write. To no longer withhold something I love from myself for unexplainable reasons.

Today I write because it’s what I love to do.