Empty Space

I’ve had a weird feeling the last week or so, and there was nothing much I could attribute it to. It was a mix of nausea, exhaustion, a stomachache and an overall tiredness. It was at once a mental tiredness, an emotional wailing and a physical pain. It was all these things, and yet there was nothing much I could pin it on. I wrote about it, thought about it, ruminated on it, changed the diet around it, tried to walk it out and couldn’t get myself to cry about it.

And then it came to me: it was an emptiness. 

I’ve tried to write this blog post three times, and it hasn’t come out until now. This is unusual for me – usually I come up with an idea, toy with it a couple days, and write it in one fell swoop. My last post felt more like pulling teeth than writing, and this one is also not coming as easily as they usually do. The difference, I think, is that suddenly, out of nowhere, I’ve finished writing about what used to hurt me as if it defines me. 

A couple years ago, I wrote a post called “I Used To Be Funny,” about a shift from writing self-deprecating emails about traipsing through the world one mishap at a time into needing to take myself more seriously and writing about what I really thought and felt. Even sometimes when I wanted to write something funny, all that would come out is what you will find on my blog: deep introspection over what has made me tick, made me cry, and made me into the person that I am today.

But here’s what happened: nothing. Nothing happened, except that I had a conversation with someone who had gone through a lot more pain than I had, pain I couldn’t directly identify with because our lives are very different, and I realized that I didn’t want to engage this person based on our pain. Whereas usually I would listen to them and then break in with a similar way that I had hurt, I found that suddenly it wasn’t that I didn’t care to hear what he said, but I didn’t want to share it with him, or step into times in my life where I had felt the same way so that I could understand what he was going through. I found the thought of continuing the conversation as it was exhausting, so I changed the subject to something lighter. In doing so, I realized that suddenly, it wasn’t so important anymore: my past, the scars that I bear, the hurts I have suffered and the people who have suffered with me. Suddenly I realized that where there was once a need to explain myself in terms of my past and ruminate on it, today there is simply a desire to move forward, into whatever is waiting for me in the empty space when my need to explore what brought me here is gone.

Eleven months ago today, I arrived in Panama. I wrote a blogpost not long after defending my need to come here, explaining that I was not escaping my problems, rather bringing them with me so that I could look them over, one by one, and try to understand what they had to tell me. Obviously this is a work that is never done, but it seems that the specific hurts that I brought with me have now all made it through the line and are gone. I have looked up from my work and realized that I’ve done it: for now, and perhaps for a little while longer, my past can be safely tucked away in the past where it belongs, and I can now look forward into the future to see where I’m going after having determined with greater clarity what made me into me and who I am because of it, even if I no longer need to define myself by that information. 

It’s a little scary. I’m not sure what it will look like. The words don’t seem to come as easily here, not yet anyway, but I’m sure the more time I give this space, the more it will reveal itself to me in terms of who I want to be when I have put down all the expectations, taken away all my limitations, and moved on from what has held me back for so long. It’s a vast and echoing empty space, but it doesn’t have to be a scary one. There’s all sorts of room for growth here: for new relationships that celebrate this new person, for more time spent in the moment instead of reliving past moments, for continuing to feel lucky for the existence I have created here, not just as a shelter to weather an emotional storm, but as a place to enjoy the newfound person I have become. It’s been a rough journey, but an important one, and I’m ready for the next step: ready to explore this new empty space.

Love and vast empty space kisses

Morgan

At A Loss For Words

It had never really occurred to me before, but it turns out if you’re finding yourself starving even after eating, it could be because you’re missing an essential vitamin or mineral that was not in the food you just ate – or the food you’ve been eating lately.

I have recently found a similar deficiency in my language, and suddenly I have realized that I am starving.

It didn’t occur to me until lately that words possibly could not be enough; that this vast and varied language that I love to play with could be missing anything at all; that there wasn’t a word for absolutely anything I was feeling, even if I personally didn’t know it yet.

Recently it has begun to occur to me that it is very likely the language I love so much is skewed: skewed toward a logical existence, and away from a creative one.

Certainly, there are many words that I can string together to create a creative picture: I can roar and scream and wail my words; the flame can burn, char, crackle and stutter in the rain if I so wish. The words are sufficient, invisible audience, but suddenly, they are not enough.

I’ve been feeling a disquiet lately. It’s the kind of discomfort that causes me to squirm in my skin; to sit staring out at the rain from my porch, my journal in my lap, trying to find the colors to paint a vibrant landscape with a palette of beige.

The words are no longer enough. Screaming out loud comes closer; breaking things for the sheer joy of hearing them shatter could possibly be the right track; setting a painting on fire might just be the way to convey the heat I’m trying to capture. It’s as if suddenly I have awoken inside a black and white world and I am trying to describe the brilliant hue of the sunset in my dream. It’s as if I want to break clear out of my skin, slough it off like a snake, and slither away cloaked entirely in sunlight.
Suddenly, words seem too logical for what I am. The creativity is leaking out of my every pore; I find it difficult to sit in front of a computer and type black onto a white page when I’d rather be screaming in ecstasy jumping off a cliff; I’d rather have my hands in the dark dirt and see it gathered under my fingernails; I’d rather run until my breath is ragged in my chest and I collapse, my entire body spent.

I’d rather be flying, and yet it still wouldn’t be enough. My creativity, my sexuality, my appetite, have all started screaming that they are starving for outlet; they are all the same thing, you see: the craving for connection, for intimacy, for fire, for art, for moments that stretch the heart chambers and cause the head to bow in disbelief; the moments that take my breath away and cause me to gulp it back in in huge deep breaths, because it is not enough to live one lifetime on this wondrous plane. Instead, I can only look forward to many lives left to come, because each moment is a new one: each sunrise a new brilliant flame, each full moon a new poem to be written, each star-studded sky a new chance to lay out in the grass and ponder how small I am, and how large a universe I get to explore.




Love and wordless kisses,
Morgan