Vicarious

Picture of the Day: 

Bonfire at Sonshine State

Quote of the Day: 

"Life is like a movie; if you've sat through more than half of it and its sucked every second so far, it probably isn't gonna get great right at the end and make it all worthwhile. None should blame you for walking out early."

-Doug Stanhope

If my life were a movie, nobody would want to go see it. Maybe that is why when I write; I think about what people would want to see, and what I would want to happen in my own life. Is it wrong to live vicariously through your work? There are things I want to happen that may never come to pass, and there are things that I want to try that I may never have the courage or the luck to experience. So, I write. 

I feel a lot like Jodie Foster's character in Nim's Island. She is a writer, too, that cannot seem to go out and live her own life. (Not to mention she is struggling with writer's block, as am I.) I am aware that it is probably dangerous to only truly live through the characters I create, but the more I try to fight it, the more my life ends up in shambles, and I end up wishing I had never left my apartment. 

But, the more I think about how I live (or don't live) my life, I get a sinking feeling I am going to get to the end of it all and wonder why I put up with it for so long. I will look around and see all of my friends happily married with families and lives of their own, and I will be alone with my computer and the written words I have penned over the years. 

I am torn between thinking that writing is my escape and my curse. I cannot explain it adequately, and I doubt any that read this would understand even if I tried to put to words how writing has become my crutch; I can have all I desire if I put it to paper, unlike in life where everything is uncertain and nothing is truly promised other than that God loves you.

With my writer's block has come a great deal of turmoil and depression. No longer can I escape what I detest about my life, and no longer am I able to live through the people I have created on my own. No longer can I make a lonely girl feel happy that she finally found someone she deserved, and no longer can I fall into a happy delusion that it can happen for me, too.

I feel like I am wasting my time. I am going to school, coming home and sitting in the dark confines of my apartment, never actually getting out and doing anything. I stare at my computer screen for hours at a time trying to find the right words to put to use for the purposes of my creative spirit, and think of creative excuses to avoid actual human contact. 

This probably sounds utterly insane for some of you, but this is the life I believe I am destined to lead: a solitary force that lives without actually living. Maybe what has me so upset is that now my writing has been taken away, too. 

Everyone tells me not to panic, that it will come back someday. But I don't think they understand how much I need it to live. I physically never actually make any strides in my life, but in my writing I can live however I want--and I can plan an entire lifetime!

Not too terribly long ago a really great guy asked me out. I couldn't imagine what he saw, and I still don't quite understand what attracted him to me. I told him (and others that found out) that I simply did not like him that way. Want to know a little secret? I lied. I was terrified. Once he knew what I was really like, he would have hated me and walked out on me, and I would have been in worse shape than I already was. I turned down the only guy that has ever thought I was worth it, and I can say that I will have to deal with those consequences for the rest of my life. (Oh, and don't worry about him--he found someone so much better! He is happy now, and I will just say I think most people are just waiting on him to ask the question!)

I think it is why I write romance novels--because I am desperate for and phobic of human interaction on a level that is much deeper than "Hi, how are you?" 

Oh well. Like I said--nothing is promised other than God's love. I guess I just have to learn to deal.