Why so difficult?

I'll stop myself short of the ever annoying "sorry it's been so long" opener. 2010 has been so full of hustle, work, and progress that the thought of trying to focus on a single thought or event has felt positively overwhelming.

So instead I'll just jump down to one very specific little tidbit, a "nugget" (for those of you who were here for breakfast this morning) of recent self-discovery.

I'm a creativity junkie. Totally hooked, dependent even. With all the aforementioned hustle, work, and progress in January I have had zero time for writing or other creative pursuits (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I have MADE zero time...). I think the absence from blogging was connected with this. In any case, I'm suddenly realizing that the long drought has caught up with me. I'm edgy, antsy, a tad cranky. I have this never-quite-gone feeling that I'm forgetting something important. When I'm alone in my room or taking a quick trip to Safeway I have the urge to chatter or sing to myself, kind of like a kettle in that rattling five second pause before the water boils.

Why is it that Creating, something so necessary and lifegiving, is so damned exhausting and hard to set down to? I've been wondering that lately. Sleeping and eating are necessary for a body to stay healthy, but I enjoy those things, and if I ignore them for too long they kind of force my attention back again. I feel like creating and making and expressing - singing and writing for me, dancing or painting or ice skating for others - is just as necessary for our souls. So why so difficult?

Right at this moment I think it's because real creativity requires two things that aren't always fun: Honesty and Awareness. I've had certain bubbling half-thoughts swirling around in my head for a month or more, and have so far managed to avoid really sitting them down for a good talk. The few times I've attempted to set down with a pen and my neglected composition book, those thoughts and feelings demand to be dealt with first. Does this ring true for anyone else?

Maybe the reason creative expression is so necessary is that it forces us to breathe deeply and ask ourselves the unvoiced questions that have been waiting in the quiet backs of our brains. Maybe that's why it's so easy to push blank pages, white canvass, or empty stages into tomorrow.

In any case, I have a scene to finish...