Same Old, Same New

Where the hell does inspiration come from? Moreover, who has it and what happens if nothing is done with it?

Take me, today. I've been having kind of a crappy day because I'm seeing reality from a negative perspective, which I really haven't done in a while so I guess it's overdue. I haven't had much human interaction on the day, either, which doesn't help. I couldn't fall asleep last night because my mind was on a warpath, deconstructing things I had taken as givens and putting them back together in forms I no longer recognize. I wound up writing with a drawing pencil on a piece of looseleaf paper in the hallway, under the nightlight outside my room because turning on the lights would hurt my eyes. It seemed like I came to a lot of conclusions, but then again that was at 2 AM. Now, the same piece of paper just seems like a redundant restatement of what I already knew.

I basically just start ripping on myself for all the things I hadn't really looked at before. Why, for example, is it so hard for me to trust people? Why is it that so many people that I consider to be friends wouldn't recognize the author of this blog? I rant on and on about honesty, but what kind of lies am I telling by not being this person on the outside as well as the inside? I started feeling so irresponsible last night, because I could see how much care I had given to the person I am on the outside and what neglect I had treated my inner self with. I just wish I was talking about superficial self-absorption - I wish it was that easy. Why have I started to push away the people I've known for so long? There's no good excuse for the cynicism I've demonstrated when it hasn't been explainable here.

The truth is that I'm only myself when Iris is a part of me, but I'm so afraid to let that happen. I find no comfort in letting Iris go freely when I still don't understand her myself - for some reason I fear that she's going to get torn apart if I let her out into the world, even though the longer I go without doing so, the more I rip her apart myself. At this rate, I'm going to keep starting over and over until I get it right. Did you ever see one of those T-shirts that said, "The beatings will continue until morale improves," on the back? That's me, right now.

I like to say that I can do anything with my life, but one thing I will never be able to do is to be a musician. I envy musicians because they can physically live off of their inspiration, whatever comes to them. Their whole job is to live and feel and translate it into a language that the rest of the world can understand. (sidenote: it's absolutely pouring outside but the sun is shining like it's 80 degrees out. This has to be the most beautiful sun shower I've ever seen). I can only hope that somehow, someway, my life can be that influenced by my own inspirations.

I think my mission for this summer is to try and find more of Iris in my life. I've scored myself another shot at all of it in NYC, and I really can't afford to mess it up this time.