Finding the outlet

I've had a lot of trouble with my creativity lately. I shut it away. I've grieved and released the emotions.

But creativity still won't flow. I keep trying to tell myself the only way to work through writer's block is to write through it - work it right out of my system with some crappy posts before genius strikes again. That's what I've done in the past. It's what I should have done this time; maybe that's what I'm doing now. I have no idea, because that's how my writer's block works ... I write and write and write until the words finally make sense and the sun peeks through the clouds.

Instead of doing that for the last two weeks, I've been moody - actually, if I'm being honest with you, I've been a miserable, short tempered bitch.

Instead of writing lame attempts at parenting humor and non-judgy posts about how wrecked my life is on such a frequent basis ... I read books. No. That's not entirely true. I devoured books. I read three novels within a week, I ate and breathed the characters, I cried uncontrollable tears and wished I could write like that, wished I could evoke that kind of emotion or hold my own attention span long enough to write something so beautiful and honest and meaningful.

Still nothing. It's like all the creative bones in my body have been broken. It's sad, but I don't know what's more sad - that it's happened or that I'm admitting it. Admitting something like this is like admitting defeat, but defeat of what I'm completely unsure of.

It seems every time I'm in that place where I can just let it flow, something dams it up. This time, I'm fairly certain it's lack of space; not space in the sense of "people won't give me space," but an actual, physical space to call mine.

The more I think about it, the more I hate that I haven't just taken over a room in this house that's easily twice the living space as the one we moved out of back in September and turned it into mine - my office, my location of creation, my hub of emotional turmoil and unspent tears. There's a spare bedroom, a basement (that is actually set up for office space) and an enclosed porch. That porch was supposed to be mine. I put my giant desk out there, I put my fabric and canning jars and ironing board.

And then because I felt bad the girls wouldn't get much more time to play outside before the New York weather turned unforgiving, I put their tricycles, their puzzles, their chalkboard in my space.

You see where I'm going here, don't you? I gave up the one space I was going to call mine. And now I'm ready to reclaim it ... or at least reclaim somewhere in this house and tell everyone else to get the fuck out once in a while so I can climb into my own head and sort things out before my life gets out of hand and I have nowhere to let it out.

Out. There's the emerging theme.

We all have outlets. Let's talk about them. What do you do? What's your outlet?

I write - obviously. But when I was younger, I wrote poetry. Lots and lots of poetry. A piece of notebook paper was always folded up in the back pocket of my jeans, a pen nestled right next to it, so when I had just a flash of creativity I could write it down. Mr. Parnell's chemistry and physics classes were prime times. I still wonder how I passed the Regents exams.

I participated in a poetry slam once in college. Bared my soul. My name and the title of my poem was in the college newspaper's article about the event. I was too afraid to get up there alone, so a friend went up with me and we shared the spotlight. If I could go back, it would be just me.

I wrote poetry. I stopped writing poetry.

Too many broken moments and bleeding hearts. Too much anger and hate. Too much wishing someone would sweep me off my feet.

I've been with my husband for nearly 11 years and not once, to my knowledge, has he read anything new in that time. There were a few poems I'd scribbled on my bedroom walls, but I'm not sure they were even visible when we started dating. I can't remember when I repainted in the darkest shade of blue I dared to use just to cover the anger. And I don't know if I've written anything worth noting in the last seven or so years, with the exception of a poem I wrote while Nana was slowly leaving us thanks to a mass in her lung.

Her funeral was the last time I bared my soul to a crowded room, and I wasn't even brave enough to read my own work. I left it up to the minister.

I should have read it them myself.

I'd consider myself a cowardly writer if not for this. If it weren't for this platform, I would live inside my spiral bound notebooks and my pens. I'd bleed out my heart for no one and no one would be the wiser. This is more cathartic.

This has been cathartic.