So I’m losing the ability to write and I should probably be bummed about it but I don’t seem to care. You see, I’ve met a man. Now, I know that sounds trite, mostly because it sounds that way to my own ears, but it also happens to be true. I’ve met and started dating an absolutely wonderful man and I am, to pepper this with clichés, over the moon about it. My friends are sick of my mooning and talking about it. I fall asleep thinking about him and when I wake up he’s already on my mind.
He does all the right things, like opening car doors, calling the day after the morning after, and on top of all that he is one of the sexiest men I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. And, yes, I do mean biblically. The first time he ever touched me I felt an instant chemical reaction and I knew right then: I was in big trouble.
And I am, but not in the way I expected. Not just yet. You see, the problem isn’t how very attracted I am to this man or how much he seems—for whatever reason—to really, really like me, too. The problem isn’t that he kisses like a Greek god or makes good coffee or seems to anticipate what I want or need. The problem isn’t that our work lives cross paths and we mutually and adamantly agree that no one needs to know. The problem isn’t that he’s looking for what I’m looking for and none of that seems to involve actually seeking but finding. The problem isn’t even that I’m more than a little terrified at how much I like him and could so very easily just fall into him and not look back.
No, the problem is that the better it gets, the worse my writing gets, and I’m afraid that unhappiness has been my muse and I didn’t even realize it.
I spent so many years yearning for what I could almost touch but knew on some level I never would again that I got comfortable in my longing. No, scratch that, I got beyond comfortable; I got good at it. I wrote passionately—perhaps because none existed elsewhere in my life. I wrote funny things—perhaps because so comparatively little in my life made me laugh. I wrote heartfelt essays, compassionate articles, and thoughtful features—perhaps because I had to turn my attention outward from my own heart to avoid and squash down the moldy taste of disappointment and unrequited living.
I spent so many years like that and now I find myself unprepared and untrained when I don’t have those things to ignore or deny. I am happy; truly and eerily joyous. I feel like a fundamental Christian who’s just been saved. I feel like a little boy on Christmas morning who has just gotten a new bike and an xBox. I feel like a woman who maybe, just maybe, could be falling in love.
In light of these recent developments it seems my muse—the fickle foul-weather bitch—has moved on to blacker pastures. And I have no clue how to get by without her. I try, I do, but my rhythm is off and the humor is gone and the pathos—let’s not even go there. I am a talentless hack and the whole world will see it very soon.
And the bitch of it, the absolute worst part that I cannot admit to anyone other than myself, is simple and unexpected to all but me:
I do not care as long as this high continues. Let me feel this feeling as long as possible and I never, ever need to write again, my heart begs.
If only she could pay the bills.
