smothered hope

Now that I've accepted the fact that my life is incredibly, frighteningly, interestingly and completely different compared to how it was just six months ago, I'm all lost and confused.

One thing I'm unsure about is my writing ability. I used to keep everythig I wrote a huge secret (well, I thought I did, until I found out the guy I was seeing actually waited for me to take showers, when he would sneak my diary out and torture himself by reading about my exes) (no, not Steve, he's not a psychopath), until I decided to start an online journal. I thought it would be good for me. At the time, there were two options: LiveJournal and Diaryland. I went with the no-ads, unlimited space, html-friendly Diaryland and started spilling my guts to nobody in particular. I met some cool people. I met some crappy people. I got plenty of compliments on my writing ability. I dumped all of my angst, confusion and secrets onto that page for five years, and then I nuked it. All of the entries are on a CD somewhere in my office, not that I plan on looking at them anytime soon. I eventually started up again, and mostly wrote about how I despised my job. Now I'm updating less and less often.

I use [my Suicide Girls] blog as a sort of superficial-babbling outlet. I opened another that I never use. I have one that's password only, a writing experiment shared with three other people who no longer exist as the particular online entities I shared my secret journal with, and as a result, the secret journal exists only in my memory (and on a server somewhere, collecting virtual dust and mold). I have a notebook so old, the back cover has come clear off and all the pages are wavy with moisture damage, and yet most of the pages are still blank. I have two other bound journals that were never filled, unlike the older ones in the collection, whose pages are dog-eared and smudged.

Where did it start to dry up? When I stopped feeling angst? Obviously not, as I'm angsting right now. When I grew bored with angst? Well, I've always been bored with it; I started a public journal because I thought I'd feel better if I got my feelings out in the open (bullshit - misery loves company). Have I lost faith in my ability to competently and creatively express myself? You betcha, but I didn't have that confidence back when it was just me and a little paper book, and it didn't keep me from prodigiously filling the pages. I wasn't frightened of writing papers for school, either. Nowadays, I'm scared shitless by the idea. (Um, and I'm in the Creative Writing program, minoring in Political Science, no less?)

Take today as a fine example: I wrote an exam which I am certain I've failed. Did I neglect to study? Certainly not; I've put in about a total of twelve hours of study in the last ten days. I knew my shit when I walked in there. So why did I have to keep from having a full-blown anxiety attack in there this afternoon? Why did it take three hours to write four pages?

Why can I ramble on and on about my stupid, crappy, redundant angst like a champ, but I can't apply the same ease with words to something useful? Why do I feel too frightened to even try? I used to write as a way of compensating for my lousy social skills. Now I feel like I have nothing. I feel like wah-ing and crying and moaning "why did I ever start showing people my writing? I've cursed myself, goddamnit!" Oh, hey, look; I just did.

Damned if you do; damned if you don't. I write to feel relief from angst; I angst because I feel I cannot write.

I want to smash things.

back | forth

listening:
reading:
ingesting:
(see entries before 20.11.05)

previously on Smothered Hope:

unreal - 20.05.08
in which our narrator kinda just babbles on a bit - 15.05.08
drank several margaritas last night. they were great. - 04.05.08
spacey - 29.04.08
i will most definitely regret posting this in public - 28.04.08