verdict

Writing is hard.  Not writing is hard.  With writing we create our own world, our interpretation of the world.  Writing brings us within.  Living brings us out.  Which is our true self?  The inner one, most would say.  And yet, the one we show to others is what will remain of us.  Is there really a reality that is not shared?  We can share our writing, too.  People can say they understand us.  But that doesn't break the solitude.  Maybe it intensifies it.  Life is a trap.  We try to forget ourselves in others, but nobody can really hold on to that.

"Because sorrow feels too heavy and joy it tends to hold you with the fear that it eventually departs."

of writing and pain

The writing has stalled for a week.  Of the two parts, as I see them - the fantastic plot and the real details - I'm much more interested in the details.  Those flow, but they are not what will make the novel.  I need to think about it all the time, to plot it, but I'm not really interested in that.  I knew it - I always lacked ambition.

Coincidentally, or not, the pain has also subsided.  The last time it flared up it was different.  It was in the chest, the solar plexus, or the heart.  Where it belongs.  Since then my depression has abated somewhat.  I can contemplate the day ahead without wanting to end it.

Writing is both a chore and a pleasure.  I avoid it, but then am relieved to be doing it.  It's the only thing that stops time.  It's painful, but I seek out pain.  It's the only emotion I can feel.  I do the same when I wake up in the middle of the night.  I think of painful things until I get tired enough and can fall asleep again.

The question is whether the writing makes it harder or easier to be me.  That's what I have to figure out.

constancy

The pain has subsided a bit - when I do get it, it's only a mild burst of heat in my abdomen.  It's really more panic than depression, and I'm not the anxious type - I can usually talk myself down, so I manage it.  What is always there is the despair - the thought that my baby is dead and there is no future without him.  But really there was no future all along, just the illusion of one.