Where do you even start to look for an imaginary friend? Especially one with infinite places to hide. A muse is a trickster, it has no form or actual substance, it is lighter than air. It can appear in an instant and disappear just as fast.
It’s easy to take a muse for granted when it is hanging around, it points to inspiration everywhere and leads you to believe the well will never run dry. And then you wake up one morning to discover that shady devil has given you the slip – it’s left you in a lurch with a self-imposed deadline. You’re on your own and everything that was once inspiring looks dull and uninteresting. You’ve got nothing to say.
You’re playing a game of hide and seek and the clock is ticking. And then, out of the corner of your mind’s eye, you see her. She’s sitting in a dimly lit corner, the place of dark thoughts and grief, and she has been watching you. You’ve been thinking around like a crazy person and looking for her in all the easy places; the pleasant thoughts, the happy memories; and she’s been waiting. Just waiting for you to look up and realize that she was never hiding, you have been resisting.
When I started to write about this journey through grief I signed a contract with myself, I vowed I would tell my truth. And I have, for the most part. I think in recent days I’ve grown weary of this truth – I’m tired. I am heartsick and homesick and I want my life to go back to the way it used to be. I don’t want to grieve anymore, but grief isn’t finished with me. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
I’m insecure, this story is exhausting to write but I feel the need to write it anyway. I worry I’m wearing my readers out, that they are as sick of this story as I am and I should just shut the ‘ef’ up – enough already! But I can’t. My muse insists I write about where I am, and where I am right now is in a dark and lonely place. So I will dive in again – take the muse by the hand and let her lead me to the next installment in this journey. Hopefully she will help me get to the other side of this but I fear, for now, we are stuck in the middle together.