December 14, 2009

The Rythym of my Flow

 Warning: honesty ahead

Back when I was 16, you couldn’t stop me from writing. Creativity seemed to flow through my brain through a hose the diameter of my wrist, just pumping out words onto paper. I had to buy more notebooks not for school purposes, but to hold everything that came out when I was so busy not paying attention to class.

I had never been in love then. At least not the kind of love that’s returned by someone other than your parents, which is something inexplicable that I’m never sure I’ll get.

I first fell in love at 17. R had the same deep set of emotions that I had, although I don’t think it flowed the same way mine did. Love came quick and hard at our senior prom and it wasn’t long before I realized how much time I would have to spend away from R when I went away to a downstate university and he stayed at home for community college. I spent the entire summer crying, unwilling to put a clamp down on the wide hose of emotion running through with the creativity.

I can’t say it was unreasonable for the therapists and the university to diagnose me with depression after I spent several minutes the day before I left for school standing on a street corner wondering if I should jump in front of a car to stop the flow. They told me I had a couple options: They could give me pills or I could try exercising. I worried the pills would make me lose me, lose all of the flow that rolled out of me, so I chose exercise.

Running came naturally as I was the captain of my high school cross country team. It clamped the flow down enough that I could function in real world ways- live with a roommate without making her scared she might come home to me cutting myself, attend classes, eat at normal times when the dorm cafeteria was open. I had enough flow to satisfy myself when I needed to, to write or daydream enough to maintain me.

Then R left me. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I’d thought of leaving him myself several times. The emotional strain of scheduled visits and worry of abandonment had gone on too long. We were both physical creatures, unsatisfied by the distance and lack of touch. My flow busted out again, swelling back up to unlivable proportions and I started running harder.

It slowed to a trickle, the size of my tight and tiny veins, leaving just enough to write for classes and work. Wasn’t that all I needed anyway? If I had to live with a roommate, had to be around people, it was probably best that I reeled it in. No one would get it, my need to curl up and be catatonic in a dark room for a couple hours, the constant scrawl of pen on notebook. But I promised myself to someday live alone for two years to fill the need.

The intervening years brought on some challenges. Striving to be normal, I dated E, bland, dull and failing out of school. I stayed with him a long time because he wasn’t a challenge to my emotions, more a blank slate that did what I asked. I started drinking, trying to fit everyone else’s college routine of binging on weekends and keeping a constant buzz during the week. I was never alone, because being alone only reminded me of what was missing, what I couldn’t have- the free flow of creative ideas.

Just before graduation, I left E and had a brief fling with J, almost to see if I could prove the flow was still in me, and that I could love someone again. The flow was still there, but I didn’t love him; he was the one who seemed to point out that I was just trying to be ignited rather than being who I really was. That set me over the edge, back to free flow, back to using alcohol and running to reel back to normal.

Series of near misses on sexual indiscretion, one-night writing-binge and suddenly I was back at home with my parents with a 9-5 in the city. The methods of controlling my flow were weirder than the flow itself- constant needs to run, drink and not be alone. I fought my parents frequently and moved out with a roommate who worked second shift, making my virtually alone from 5:30 until I went to bed every night.

Almost reluctantly, the flow came back, as if the hose was kinked but not quite fully cut off, the flow still bubbling around the edges of the bend. I started writing again, here and there, but still realizing I couldn’t lose it mid-day at work, I had to exercise control, restraint, poise. Somehow I started feeling loneliness and started trying to connect with people in any way possible. From making out in bars to drawing eye contact at coffee shops, I wanted someone to pay attention to me. Just me. Didn’t matter who or if I even liked him, just that I didn’t have to be alone for that hour.

Then K started playing a larger role in my life. We chatted online, got together on weekends but never crossed that line until he started working in the city. When our love finally happened, it was again, hard and fast, almost unthinking. I felt rescued. For months, our flows seemed to match up- my need for attention was met, but we still both had enough time to be ourselves, apart, that no one’s flow was disrupted (to my knowledge).

I don’t know what stopped my flow, exactly. A number of things happened around the same time that brought my hose into a huge knot in my head. It could have been marathon training, moving in with a roommate that wouldn’t leave me alone, having my flow dried by a rigorous writing routine at work, birth control pills, more drinking, more family time because of my brother’s wedding… it all seemed to pull the knot tighter and tighter, but by September or October I wasn’t writing at all outside of work and even my work writing was stiff. With the creative flow, my emotions dried up.

As I became more frustrated with the dry-up, I turned outward. Clearly I couldn’t fix what was going on inside, so I had to try to act normal. Running became obsessive, as did making other people happy, especially my family. I had forgotten about wanting to live alone because now there was no point. If I couldn’t have my flow, I needed someone else there. Something to fill the void, fill the time.

Losing my job was the final jerk in the knot that set me over the edge. I started clinging to K in a way that was irrevocable. I made desperate attempts to hold on to the things that made my life worth it: K, running, my family, my friends. When I got a new job I added that to my list. Trying not to have the big unknown in front of me the way I did when I was 18, my life became one long list with items to be crossed off in priority order whether they were work, running or people. That list became not just for day to day but for life: Marriage by 28, homeownership by 30, kids by 32. After all, it’s not like I had anything better to do: the flow wasn’t coming back. On what I would consider the one year anniversary of that knot being tied, K broke it off with me. My clamp had come down on his flow.

Last Friday night, without warning or explanation, the knot came undone. The hose gradually popped back open- I can’t say it’s as wide as it was when I was 16, nor should it be- having the same emotions as a 16-year-old wouldn’t probably fly in the working world. But for the first time in years, I spent Saturday alone and enjoyed it. I didn’t run and didn’t feel bad about it. I spent too many hours in bed and on my couch and no one called me out on it. I scribbled down story ideas and concepts for pieces of art I wanted to build without fear of judgment or desire to hide it from someone. And I remembered why I wanted to live alone- so I could be me.

I remember now what it’s like to have ideas. To write a story that isn’t sourced and AP-styled. To stay up all night because you can’t stop thinking. To want to create in a way that knows no boundaries, that screws up your work schedule and your running schedule and your friendships. To desire physical comfort as a way to warm your brain. And I want to keep this. I want to learn to control it to garden-hose size, with consistent flow unless I put on the emergency brake. I want to live a full life again.

•