frustration

It only takes about half an hour for the day to wake up, going from tormented clouds in a granite sky to wisps of glittered cloudstroke on a backwash of blue. I envy the accomplishment.

I was looking for some magic this morning, I admit it. Something to restore faith and hope and anticipation to my life, or even as non-ambitious as the day. A little Christmas spirit, or anything really. All I found was more negativity, more emptiness, more …nothing.

A failing in myself, of course. What is spirit if not the energy from within to find joy or triumph? What is happiness if not communication, resolution, peace?

Pen to paper, ass to chair.

This is the writing advice I was given by a writer who never seems to have a lack of something to say. It annoys me. Not his work, of course, but that I sit here, fingers poised on the keyboard and words, my best and only friends it seems, evade me. I am ready for them, have purged the 50,035 words of nonsense from November and feel I've paid my dues. It is time to be able to write something good, something interesting, something special! Yet… nothing.

I know how I got here. I know I'm a person who thrives on feedback. Some say I need "validation"… but that's not it really. It is that I …

No, I'm not even able to type that.

That's the problem. I'm not willing to expose my weaknesses. I’m not willing to give anyone the power or the right to judge feelings truly felt, ideas that may not have merit. I’m not willing to risk my tenuous grip on sanity for someone who thinks I'm full of shit. And only when I am willing to do that will the words make sense, make anyone at all care.

In short, I don't have a trustworthy reader, and I'm too chicken to take a risk. I'm like the cat in this room, so brave on this side of the glass, chattering at birds in the garden. He is all talk and no action these days, grown fat and lazy and satisfied. He wants to chase the birds, but what if it means he can no longer lay here by the fire, and watch them out his window, and just talk?