Issue #29 You're tearing me apart, Lisa!

I miss being manic.

There, I've said it. The elephant in the room that lives in my head and has been braying inside my brain for the last few weeks.

I don't miss staying awake for days on end, the overspending, the hypersexualization, the running to and fro from things, no, I don't miss those things.

But I do miss making art.

I've been thinking about my lack of creating art and creativity as of late and I feeling nothing other than a huge failure. I'm living in a fugue state, not a zombie really as I do get pleasure out of some things, but when it comes to making something, anything, any kind of art, I'm paralyzed. My brain just closes upon itself. I stare at all of my creative tools, shrug my delicate shoulders, and move on to play Animal Crossing, letting my supplies gather dust.

Over the years, I've read more than enough studies that discuss the idea more productivity/creativity when you're manic is a fallacy. It may seem that way but it really isn't. You can be just as creative when you're stable as you thought you were when manic. I keep hearing the voices of my dead heroes: Carrie Fisher, Kurt Cobain, Fitzgerald, Van Gogh, and Hemingway telling me they would have given anything to have stability in their lives without the pain of this disease but I'm standing, wide eyed and slack jawed, and slowly shaking my head. I'm stable and have been for the last few years. There has been a lot of good that has come from the drugs but

but

but there is the price I am paying, I think I am paying or am I? Or is it I'm just not as creative/spontaneous/fun as I thought? Maybe my creative side has all been a lie? Maybe I have a creative side and it has to be reached another way?

I don't know.

I keep coming across various artists these days who make good art and some suffer from some sort of mental disorder and they say they would have given anything to be stable more than a few days but they are still creating art! And I wonder, why am I not using the time I have now to create the art? To tap into my past and write about that? Or all the ideas I do generate but never follow through?

I keep a Google doc of all my ideas that I can sell to publications. Most of it deals with mental health. I have a book idea about a girl who is bipolar amongst several other ideas. These are things I know; things I've written passionately about in the past. Topics I can give a lot of justice to; make them mine.

But

But # TEH and I bought MoviePass and we've seen three movies this week with plans to see a movie every week at least. As we sat through Lady Bird, which I really liked, I asked TEH what he thought and he said it wasn't something he hasn't seen before. There is nothing new. 

A mentor of mine from library school, when I was talking to her even MOAR grad school, said not to worry if the topic I'm interested in seems to be worn out and downtrodden; what makes it fresh is my voice coming to the table. It will be my take, my opinion, my view which will wholly be different than someone else's words.

I keep this in mind when I come across artists who write the same topics or the same genres and while the plot of robots fighting dragons may sound the same, one's take on a robot fighting dragon maybe they fall in love while another writer's take would be the robot rules the dragon's kingdom.  

See. New voices. # Maybe if I'm being really honest, moving the elephant over to be joined by a mate, I am feeling irrelevant and I'm not sure how to process that. Maybe it's not about creating art, maybe it's about just being alive. # I'm going to try and curate a new playlist for each issue. You should see the player below for #29 but if not, you can listen right here.

# (No, I'm not going off the drugs. This is why I have a therapist, to work on these things. The price I would pay to lose Justin is too high and he has made it very clear if what happened in 2014-15 happens again, he'd leave with no questions asked. I walked the dog a few weeks ago and I started thinking about if something happened to him and I honestly do not know what would happen to me if he left me / died / whatever. I would be so lost; I would be nothing. The thoughts started at the beginning of the walk and by the time I was almost done, I was near to getting hysterical which is not a good look on anyone.)

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