Feeling Angsty

So, I just got back from a long weekend that filled me so full of creative spark and excitement, I thought I was going to burst when I got back to Monterey. I was so full of all the creative ideas and projects I wanted to finishing/revisit/start. I felt I would set the world ablaze (oh yes, I am a firestarter) with the sheer magnitude and volume of what I have to express.

Then I got back.

And now I have just undirected angst and the itch to do something but what? What? WHAT?

Part of it is that I am trying my hardest to back out of a commitment I made, and I can't seem to do it. At the weekly meeting I have with those involved with the project, I quietly mumbled things like "I don't think this is right for me" or "I may not be the kind of writer you are looking for" or "We need to have better focus before I continue." And no one heard me.

It may be that I am so awesome and valuable to their project that they just don't want to acknowledge that I want to leave and so hope that by ignoring it, I'll stop talking and just stay.

But more likely it is that I am an inveterate conflict avoider, so my quiet mumbles are probably more like inaudible whines.

Seriously, this is a huge character flaw I have. I either lay down and let everyone move me around however they see fit or I get blindingly full of rage and then destroy everything that is dear to me in my attempt to be heard. There has to be a happy medium where I am heard yet I don't hurt (myself and others).

Still looking for it. And so in the meantime, I'm left with angsty rainy Wednesdays and have no one to blame but myself.

[And to top it all off: I can't speak French!]

Henry Miller (who could speak French) gets the last word:

What I secretly longed for was to disentangle myself of all those lives which had woven themselves into the pattern of my own life and were making my destiny a part of theirs. To shake myself free of these accumulating experiences which were mine only by foce of inertia required a violent effort. Now and then I lunged and tore at the net, but only to become more enmeshed. My liberation seemed to involve pain and suffering to those near and dear to me. Every move I made for my own private good brought about reproach and condemnation. I was a traitor a thousand times over. [...] because "they" needed me, I wasn't allowed to remain inactive. Had I died I think they would have galvanized my corpse into a semblance of life.

(Actually, he doesn't) How do you say no to good things when all you have to go on is that there is a slight possibility of a better thing in the future if you are available and ready?