It's been a while since I've hung out at this place I like to call my safe, slightly narcissistic hub of self-absorption. The little bubble I used to voluntarily imprison myself in turned into something unescapable, and the second I was aware of my captivity, I felt restricted and uncomfortable. The mirror that used to unconditionally laugh back at my mere attempts at wit, and I’d even like to say thought provoking streams of consciousness, suddenly held back its laughter, because frankly, I didn’t laugh myself. For a couple of weeks, I found myself in a place where commitment turned into burdensome duties and trying to regain my passions only left me with self-doubt, disappointment and despair. Everything felt like a stressful and unaccomplishable task, completely draining the half-empty creative rooms in my brain, whose doors seemed to be locked temporarily. It’s not that I was tired of life itself, but rather tired of the present, and no amount of sleep could help me get the energy and excitement back, that I once used to feel.
The process and results of falling out of love are often similar regardless of what type of love has been lost. Just like falling out of love with someone I used to be close to, it all started with the realisation that my love suddenly felt different. What once felt freeing now felt limiting, and my attempts to feel excited about what used to fulfill me the most all failed despite the strong will to make it work once again. It’s inevitably followed by a series of self-doubt and sleepless nights wondering about what I must have done wrong. Did I do my love any harm? Was I not good enough? Perhaps my love hadn’t been real in the first place? Maybe I had simply made the wrong decision about what I thought was right for me, and I was now faced by the task to find out what I really desired. Just like when you get to add another ex to the list of romances that are only kept alive in your nostalgic throwbacks right before you go to bed at night, falling out of love gives you the anxiety that nothing will ever feel like this again. The idea of love was still there, still treasured, but like with everything else that usually comes after a ‘but’, it could’ve also simply been pure bullshit all along.
I understand the irony of me writing about falling out of love with writing, but please bear with me as I’m trying to figure out whether I have found a cure. It all started a couple of weeks ago with a common infection of writer’s block, but after some time went by, it felt like I had been cursed with an incurable disease I was never going to get rid of. However, just like all the other times I believed that love was never going to come back to me, I’ve been proven wrong again. I guess it’s fair to assume that repetitiveness can weaken the glamorisation of all kinds of love and passion, and the motivation to maintain what one owns only comes back after you’ve distanced yourself from your love for a while. As with most things that are confused with being lost when in reality they’re just hidden, I simply had to take a step back to get a better view which would enable me to find my loss again. Taking some time off and not occupying myself at all with what I used to helped me get back my partial sanity, and just like you’d do with an almost-to-be ex, you come back together, make up (and out), tell each other how much you missed one another and realise that what you have is too valuable to throw away. And although you know it’ll take some time to get back to where you want to be, you realise with relief and a recycled love that it wasn’t time to add him onto the list after all.
