Mourning Neuroses

I haven't written in 20 days. Almost three weeks. Coincidentally, that is also about the same amount of time that has passed since I began meditating. I have felt so calm and at ease, capable of simple joy and pure breath. I wonder if this is the thing that has stopped writing from coming. I wonder if the voices in my head that debated back and forth were the sources of a final conclusion that I felt forced to commit to paper. After all, what is writing but a final verdict, a judgment deciding between the voice that tells you you are nothing and the voice that says you are everything? Isn't writing the negotiation between these two realities?

Meditation has quieted the debate. A lot of the practice takes aim at negative thought patterns, but without them, where does my defender intercede? She does not. The chatter is quiet. Almost eerily so.

The blessing of course has been openness. A sunset is beautiful, a breeze tickles. I believe many call this string of sensations "being," the simple art of which I never really mastered. 

I live in the analytical world that wraps like atmospheric layers around actual experience. I am almost detrimentally good at knowing sadness, but also can happily provide causes, cyclical patterns, and above all else the damning prophecy of a life confined to sadness. This, I believe, is symptomatic of the writers'* world. But underneath that layer of fog there is a body who once knew joy, just joy. And pain, just pain. 

But there it goes. Just like that. I have lost the art of predicting lifelong doom. And I think, "is that the end of writing* for me?" After all, one cannot write revelations without knowing the monotonous patterns of this world, my world, before finally breaking them open.

But I can't help but wonder if this is a loss that I can withstand. These patterns I recognized, that I could see with a birds' eye, they were always critical. I never identified a pattern of joy. Always it was a hellish repetition: Bad things happen because I do bad things because I am a bad person so I do bad things. 

Living in the world of intense understanding was rarely rewarding. 

So can I accept this world without rumination? Can I live happily ever after feeling breezes without wondering which way the wind is blowing, and when it might change?

I fear it may be for the best. So though I haven't written, therefore determining that I am not, at all, someone who writes, a writer, I think I accept this life. If at the end of the day, writing allowed for moments of pride, at the expense of days, months, wasted on worry and doubt, then perhaps it isn't worth it. Perhaps joy is better. 

But I will miss the thing that made me special - I will miss believing that this made me worthy. Or perhaps, the key is, I'm beginning to feel worthy in a less contingent way. Perhaps I do not grab frantically for a thing that makes me worthy of space, of life, of breath. So at least let me ruminate one last time:

I wanted a reason to be here, on this planet. I wanted to know that I was not a waste, and finding myself to be a writer did that for me. And knowing this felt wonderful. Except for the days that I didn't know it, not even a little bit. And on those days? Who was I? What gave me permission to take room? If it was my gift I wasted it every day, and then I knew with certainty, like all the evil thoughts that live so loudly in my brain, that I wasn't valuable.

But, without that desperation, I'm not sure I care. I will bow at the alter of sensations. I will feel at once that I am everything and nothing, that I am singular and infinite. That there is an Annie shaped hole in the world that only I can fill. Not a gap between two authors, but a gap between breaths. And I must trust that my exhalations are enough to leave my mark on this world.