Getting my Mojo Back

I think i may have suffered from exhaustion last week. I thought exhaustion was just some bullshit excuse people (particularly Celebrities) used to take time off from their lives. I mean every time i have heard the word it usually came after " (Insert Singer or Actor) has cancelled their tour or public experience from EXHAUSTION"

But after last week, i am not calling exhaustion a bullshit excuse anymore because i was completely drained and irritable. This semester is kicking my ass. Seriously. Sometimes i feel like i am drowning under the weight of everything. Simple task these last couple of weeks have been harder to finish, and i knew at any moment i was going to crash.

Reading assignments have gone unfinished, i slept in a corner at work ( and didn't caught), i missed my Film class cause i over slept...you get the picture.

My bubbly disposition was gone and replaced with an irritated one. I'm not one of those happy smiley people, but i am a relaxed person to be around. I rarely get angry, i don't like arguments, and i have about 5 years of jokes stocked up to keep people pretty entertained.

But lately i have been so drained, that i just haven't felt like myself. I felt like a train going top speeds, and suddenly I derailed.

2 weeks ago i had a short story due, and at 2 in the morning i literally was still at my computer nearly in a panic saying quietly to myself "I have no idea what i am doing"

It's weird because i know I'm a smart kid, i know my strengths and weaknesses: I'm sensitive, intuitive, funny, and sometimes even charming. I'm also a constant worrier, procrastinator, and self conscious. But sometimes out of nowhere, even though i know what i am capable of, i get this frightening thought that "I have no idea what i am doing" with my life, school, the future, and as of late writing.

I have to admit something....something i never thought i would write...but lately writing has become a drag. Don't get me wrong, it's everything to me, i wouldn't be the person i am without being able to write. I still am going to be a writer, become prolific and marry Sufjan Stevens. But my creative writing class is killing my love of writing lately.

I'm not use to this whole criticism thing. From teachers or professionals in the field i don't mind getting some suggestions about my writing. But from peers, i think it is utter bull crap to have them look at my work and then try to give me feedback on it. So far i have been working with people who don't give suggestions but instead ask stupid questions as to "why did you put this in here, the grammar is off, i would put a comma here instead of there".

Not only do i have their criticism to listen too, but then i have to read their craptastic work which is very disappointing and bland.

I now feel constricted with my writing, like i have to write either a) how i think people want me to write or b) simplified as to not confuse or overwhelm my peers. Writing has not become fun anymore, I've ditched all my cheesy story ideas for "the proper" writing style, I haven't written one piece of work that i actually like, and even blogging has become hard.

I hate admitting this, but it's the truth. Being surrounded by so called "writers" who worry more about comma splices than content, has sucked all the life out of what makes writing beautiful for me.

Writing was always a way for me to connect to people. In the 4th grade when i was in love with a boy named Nicholas, i'd spend most of the school day bouncing off ideas with him. We wrote a movie along with my best friend about some kids who were spies. It majorly sucked, when i think back on it, but it was fun and natural. We didn't care that 10 year olds couldn't possibly be spies, or that production of the movie would cost more than our allowance, but we just liked creating something together because it connected us.

As a teenager writing was my escape. I have middle school and high school journals full of entries about shit days and crushes on teachers(pretty much like now). Instead of writing being a way to connect to people, it became a way i connected to myself. Putting into words what i couldn't seem to vocalize.

Writing is like this natural thing, i don't try to over think it, i don't care about grammar(clearly) and I could give a shit about spelling. I just do it, because it's who i am. It calms me, restores me, and reminds me of my natural self...not the anxious girl on the outside who is constantly worried about what people will see.

But lately i have been anxious about writing , as i am about everything else, that it's wearing me out. Writing is my one relief and if don't that have that what do i have?

I went over this today in therapy with Toby. I have a tendency of rambling with him, cursing a lot, and expressing my real sort of anxious side. He's never read any of my stuff, but he seems to believe me when i say that i'm a good writer. He thinks that i am too conscious about writing, that i'm making it more mental art than a...natural one. And he wants me to return to a state when it wasn't a task.

I haven't been devoting time to actually writing what i want to write, and for this reason i am so frustrated and stressed because my relief has all been sucked out of me. I don't know how to return to that state when writing was fun, and not a chore as Mr. McSoulSucker seems to keep drilling into us.

Toby thinks i should give more time the writings i like to invest in, so it can become natural and free again.

So no more writing about how hard writing is. No more grad school talk, grades, or any of that stuff. Back to the natural, so i can be stress free again.

I took a three day weekend (yes i totally skipped class, wrote in bed with my pj's and slippers, and ate cereal) so i could get into the writing mood again. I think it worked, because writing doesn't seem so daunting anymore.

I just need to get my mojo back.