As I near the exit on 2019, I’m doing something that I don’t normally do: reflection (historically it’s rumination or bust for me). And what I find as look at 2019, is that it might be the best year of my life. Clarification- my adult life. Ten was fucking amazing.
And so I’m forced to confront the correlation between feeling positive and the dearth of writing the past few months. Yes, I was working on the novel for the last half of the year. But that was editing, not inspiration. That was basketball practice. That was going to the gym. All work, minimal fun.
I don’t know yet if it’s possible to produce the same level of work when you feel good. It certainly flows when you’re fucked up. It’s the one thing you can count on, because it’s normally the only thing you’ve got.
And yet, fuck it. There’s such a large part of me that is sick and tired of only growing through suffering. The concept that only through struggle and adversity can we grow, was so engrained in my Midwest Protestant roots, that something as soft as love is a true novelty.
And so this is my promise to keep writing in 2020. Which is pretty much my resolution this year. Even if it doesn’t flow like it did before. Although I’m starting to question if (except for a few unenviable states of mania) it ever really poured out of me. I think it was always work. But the kind that gives so much more than it takes. I guess that’s the gym.
