I really think I have lost the ability to write. I write a few lines, then erase them. I repeat the process until the page is finally blank and I have no more starters, no more words. I really think somehow I have lost the ability to create. I do not know if this is a normal feeling to have or if this is some sort of side effect of the pandemic, but I know I have it. So I have decided that, instead of worrying about the exact order of words or which ones would make my writing “prettier,” I will just write.
Yes, the days are unappealing and gritty. Night is too short and too long. Life is a day on repeat. The smell of coffee doesn’t hold the same charm it once did. Tea cannot be savored sip by sip like it once could. And yes, I’m aware this state of affairs is depressing. It is even more depressing to write about.
But you know, so what? So what if I can’t create something pretty? I don't feel pretty. The world doesn't seem pretty. So why should I write pretty? There are no butterflies to romanticize over, no rainbows and white shining fields to describe for this article. There is just me. And these days. And this laptop screen for hours and hours and hours on end.
But you know, so what? I will honestly take this depressing state of affairs. I will take this depressing state of affairs and fill myself with a self-righteous feeling that I’m owed some growth. Yes, I really think the universe owes me some growth on this one. I really think it owes everyone some shots of growth. I know I have written in the past that the universe doesn't owe us shit, but I feel like this time it really has got to make an exception. It just has got to.
So I’m still waiting for my movie moment. I’m still waiting for that singular moment that apparently makes all the damned drudgery worth it. I’m waiting for everything to make crystal clear sense in a crystal clear moment of crystal clear clarity.
And I want that moment to be dramatic. I want thunder. I want roaring rain. I want to be standing in the middle of an empty ground chilled to my very bone, with the wind whirling around my hair like in some sort of post-apocalyptic world. Then I want a lightning sharp realization to strike my head and course through my veins and fill my blood. And then I want that sagging moment of relief that everything makes sense, the world is okay, I’m good and fine, and then I can be on my happy way. Truly, that is my list of demands for the universe.
Will any of this come true? Probably not. Am I being foolish? Absolutely, yes. Is there a point to any of this? Definitely not, and also maybe yes. Maybe I will go my entire life in search of my perfect, out of this world, dramatic movie moment. Maybe I will go through my entire life and never find it. Maybe after I am dead, people will talk about how I was foolish to live in a world of books and movies and to have the same expectations of this life. But fools live to see another day. And that’s what I’m doing. I’m living to see another undramatic, unappealing, unmovielike, unbooklike day.
You know what? As long as I live to see another day, maybe this moment will come. Perhaps not in the exact way I described it. Definitely not with the same flair of drama that I have imbued it with. Maybe it will come in a different garb, in bits and pieces, in stolen moments, in that short space of time between morning and night (it’s called evening, Zubia — God, could you BE any more dramatic?) when maybe, actually, life isn’t that drab. Dare I say, I can almost see the charm in a cup of tea and a novel.
Maybe it has already come in some sort of garbled way that the universe thinks is funny, and this is my way of conveying it to the rest of you. Or maybe it will never come, and I will continue making up gibberish along the mighty highway of its search, and Paulo Coelho will tell me that’s what it was all about, or something like that. I don’t know. I’m not sure. Who cares. Whatever. Huh. Would you look at that, I’ve written something resembling an article. Much applause. Thank you. I shall take my leave.
