My Unplanned Vacation & Sudden Return
Call it writer’s block, call it exhaustion, call it laziness… call me out on it if you wish, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m here now.
Netflix released Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman today. Adam woke up with the energy of a kid on Christmas morning. We had both been anticipating this day since the announcement of its creation, although Adam has been a fan of the graphic novel for several years. He had introduced me to Gaiman’s stories of the Endless via an audiobook released last year — I was hooked. Anyone who has read my short stories about The Elementals can see its influence.
“Want to watch the first episode?!” Adam exclaimed as I was just waking up — sniffling, coughing, half-miserable (because of Covid; your girl got the ‘rona). “Okay,” I responded in a voiceless, phlegm ridden whisper. I returned to the waking world by being enveloped in stories of dreams.
I won’t go into a rant about how enjoyable it was; truly, you should take the time to watch it yourselves.
What I will talk about is the phenomenon of me being here at my computer, back at Medium.com, writing.
Yeah. I’m writing again.
Post-coffee, pre-breakfast. Light rain and the hum of the AC. Quiet apartment, as Adam has left for work, and I’m here feeling like a house-cat waiting for him to return so we can watch more episodes. Sniffle, sniffle. Hack. Time for tea. Water, water, water, water.
I have been delightfully depressed these past few months. Delightfully! Yes, I will keep that descriptor there because I like how it looks against that dark, murky term of mental illness. Because within that time, I still accomplished a lot — including some pretty cool personal milestones — and frankly I’m still in one piece breathing which is more than what others can say going through this sort of brain-chemical malfunction. Regardless. I wouldn’t have said it then, but I’m saying it now, even if it doesn’t make sense: delightful depression.
I won’t bore you with what my depression looked like but I’ll mention its effects on my writing. My words are an extension of my energy. And when the depression kitty burrowed its home in the base of my spine, I was deprived of imagination and emotion. All the leaves were brown, all the leaves were brown, all the leaves were brown. My stories were dried up.
(Also, quick tangent, Medium.com disabled the phone app from being able to edit stories, which is how I completed most of my writing. So partial blame goes to you, Medium.)
My mind had been budding up against a thought that was not unfamiliar: “You can’t call yourself a writer if you’re not writing.” For weeks I pondered, “am I okay with giving up this side of my identity? Am I ready?”
Answer?
F*ck no.
Maybe it’s Netflix’s perfect choice in story telling, maybe it’s the high of hearing my voice on major streaming platforms, maybe it’s my fever from Covid-19, maybe it’s staying up late talking with my best friend before we turn into pumpkins… maybe it’s the rain. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. I’m here now and I’m going to work hard to stay here.
Cheers, & happy August. I can’t wait to share with you everything I’ve been up to this summer, new short stories, and what’s to come in future artistic endeavors.
-Summit
