My Diving Bell, and My Butterfly?

I watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly again. It's based on a true story about a playboy who goes into a coma and awakens with "locked-in syndrome." He is aware of all that's going on around him but cannot react. He is completely paralyzed save for the ability to blink his left eye.

After coming to grips with his situation, he ends up writing a book, which is both incredibly uplifting and depressing. This man writes a book with literally the blink of an eye and I can't finish one goddamn poem I like.

After we watched the film, Marion said something interesting in that she wonders if I feel like him at times. I hadn't thought of that, but to some degree, it's true.

I have no major physical infirmities, but often feel like I'm in a mental straitjacket. All these ideas and nowhere to go. I can't seem to take one step without the fear of falling flat on my face. Sooner or later, I let life shove me along and do just well enough to get by until I feel stuck again. I make due and that's about it.

I'm tired of... well... I'm just tired these days. But I'm especially tired of just making due.

I have all sorts of worries. That I can't be as creative as I want to be. That I can't inspire people the way I'd like to. That I've wasted too much time. That I'm not living up to my potential.

I could blame things such as the surprise of having twins putting a stop to some momentum I had going about how I felt about myself, for taking up so much time in my life and pushing me to do what I have to and not necessarily what I want, but anyone who knows me knows that I will try to find any reason to sabotage myself. Yes, having twins is very hard. It eats up so much of my time and energy. But I still have an hour or hour and a half at night to figure things out, and I end up just sort of spacing out and not getting anywhere.

I've tried to cut myself some slack. There's a lot on my plate and I shouldn't put so much pressure on myself to figure everything out "right now." If I don't write every day, don't sweat it. But a day turns into a week turns into a month.

I feel as though I need to write but that my brain is usually too muddy to put anything coherent together. I get frustrated, I stop.

Sometimes I guess it feels counterintuitive that something you want to do so much is so damn difficult. I'm too used to doing things in my life that either come pretty naturally, or I do things just to the point where it would take what I figure is too much effort to improve upon. I will linger in amateurishness for a while before giving up altogether.

I know I have to put in the time to be good at something. Or at least, good at writing. I know I have to write to be a good writer. I'm sure I'm so good at talking myself out of things because I've practiced that an awful lot.

So, I signed up for a writing workshop that will go through all of October and November. I don't have the money for a full-out "course," so I figure an somewhat intensive, course-like workshop will do. I'm hoping it will be good practice. It will force me to write, force me to work consistently and patiently at a skill I want to hone, and force me to deal with criticism. I'm also hoping it will be fun, as I had to promise Marion that it won't just be something else to become all stressed out about.

The workshop is for creative writing, which is not exactly the most practical thing but I'm hoping to maybe start a certification program next year in something that might help me find a career I enjoy. I figure anything that gets me writing is a positive. And I need outside motivation right now.

There have been various butterflies that have come along in my life; maybe this will be another.