Come Together

I am running behind this week, or at least that was the case until today. Thanks to my subconscious, which has provided some quite memorable moments during the last few days, I have a completely formed romantic comedy in my head. It’s a really pleasant change from the normal fare of poetry and responsibility, and tells me that maybe, possibly, the brain is adapting to my change in mental circumstances.

There is always a small, inherent fear that when taking on a large scale project you’ll simply not possess the mental fortitude to complete it. Once upon a time that was most definitely true: this morning I went back five years and deleted the remains of the last project I’d tried to complete on this kind of scale and failed. The mental fallout from that project still haunts me on bad days.

I managed to gain a stalker as a result of that series of events, someone who refused to leave me alone and went to increasingly frightening ends to make his displeasure of me obvious and very public. Once upon a time I thought it was useful to keep those memories and moments in my thoughts, reminder of what happens when you fail. Except, now I understand this does nothing but damage current ability to be creative.

Slowly but surely, ghosts from my past are being exorcised. It’s neither pleasant or pain free, but what is becoming apparent from the process is exactly how resilient I am capable of being, and that the work being produced is good, really good. Everything changed when it stopped being about keeping other people happy, and the realisation dawned that doing stuff for myself mattered far, far more.

The slow, steady path to self-sufficiency and enlightenment continues apace. It’s not just poetry this week, but short stories and microfiction. Every new thing I try shifts things in a different direction, gradually expanding my skills. Confidence breeds more experimentation, less fear and a continuing desire to try more things, attempt better projects, produce the best work I can.

I’m never, ever going back to being the person I used to be.