Caves

I’ve found myself in an uncomfortable dry spell of writing, and I’m finally willing to admit it has everything to do with the realization that some friends weren’t friends, or at least aren’t anymore. That uncomfortable space of having shared so much, to only now want to retreat into a cave and be unseen by them has me not wanting to write or share my thoughts out of annoyance they might read my words and know something of the person hiding in the cave now.

I make it sound like that is an embarrassment… like I am almost embarrassed for the loss of friendship. No, it sounds like that but it’s more a desire to be invisible to them specifically. Now that I’m in the cave and wanting this, I have rewound and replayed numerous events and conversations that have me wondering why I was so invested in being wheel number four to these 3 individuals. Yes I loved them, yes they loved me, but the events that unfolded that led to my unwillingness to be one of the four corners of a smooth ride has me seeing that nothing changed but my willingness. I said “no more”. I said “I want change”. The other 3 didn’t get to have a say in my decision, because it came at a point beyond remaining comfortable, so I did the cave thing and although they know where my cave is… I wish they didn’t.

What’s also annoying, is that this feeling of wanting to disappear; it's childish. You know that little girl who you tell she’s pretty and since she doesn’t want you looking at her, she covers her face. I feel like that annoying little girl, but the desire to cover my face is very real. It’s led me to not write and share. Writing has always been an inherent desire. I’ve let people who don’t deserve to control me, stop me from doing something I love to do all because of where I’ve put them in my head. I chose to enter this cave.

It could border on paranoia… that I think they give a shit. The funny thing is there are no signs they give a shit, I just really really don’t want them to give a shit! So I’ve let it affect me.

I belive whole-heartedly in the power of decisions. I clearly decided something that harms my creativity, and I need to not undecided it, but instead make a new decision that is bigger than it. Wrapping my head around what decision that is, is where I am now feeling stuck between wanting to write and still being unable to let myself flow because of who might read it.

And there it is… I’ve just told myself that what others think matters, when I’ve spent years preaching and believing that the only person whose opinion matters is your own.

I’ve seen the harm that a cave creates. I know that isolation is not the answer. I’ve watched it make others closed-minded and intolerant. I don’t want to be one of those people, so to resist isolation is a hard one. It is only in isolation that you can cry with your ugly face, that you can be depressed, that you can eat, drink, or wear anything and even if it leaves snot on your chin, chives in your teeth, or a contorted bed sprawl,  and nobody in the world knows. That is the appeal of the cave. Plus I’m a thinker… the cave provides insatiable thought/analysis/conclusion/decision. I’ve done it before with a broken heart, and the cave helped. But this time around, there is discomfort in the need for the cave, and the staying in the cave. I think this time the way out of the cave is to bite the bullet and write, irrespective of it being read by anyone or everyone.  Ya, I feel like I’ve left my clothes in the cave and come out naked, but that won’t kill me. Staying in the cave might.