When Richard left, he gave me a book. My first week at the job I had asked him what his favorite book was and he had told me it's 'Vile Bodies' by Evelyn Waughn. Richard trying to be an enigma, I thought I'd read Evelyn Waughn. Really, I just wanted to know if Richard was smart at all; an assumption easily made after reading one's favorite book. But I never did. Now that Richard gave me that book, a book that smart people would read, I rediscovered that things can be said, or said beautifully. In our job, we express ourselves in tiny stories. In a way, not much individual expression takes place. Reading Evelyn Waughn on my holiday, this much needed time away from a very numbing last few months in terms of real passion for the words, I now see my writing and expression has taken a beating. But it's not the tiny story that killed it; it's the inevitability of losing the words when feelings are bottled up. And that's pretty much all I've been doing...
I recently mentioned my blog a few times. My team at work said they had read it and two of my friends were looking for clues about my life in that messy writing. While I heard I was read, I didn't feel good. Whatever I've been saying is not profound or helpful or even entertaining to anyone but it helped me make things clear to myself sometimes. If I write for myself, I can also fool myself. But not if its public. Hence, in these relatively emotional times, it's been hard to pen truths because I really can't say anything at all. My emotions are influenced by other people's miseries or lives, I have no right to discuss that. So in this moment, sitting on a train on the way to say goodbye to my best friend in London, then onto a plane to take me to Egypt, there's a plethora of emotional material. But my mind is empty. I have no words. It shouldn't be like that...
The things that have occupied my thoughts have no cure than to get away from here for a bit. As discussed, I have given my feelings absolutely no time to exist. Since August, I have drowned myself in work so a certain amount of thinking didn't have to be done. I have avoided decisions and I have procrastinated change. As a result, the words simply don't come. Beauty, misery, heartache, that's the fuel for words, not routine and comfort. I didn't want to let go of this blissful feeling I had since coming to Cambridge because of my job, my life, my relationships. There were many, many sources of happiness for me in the past year and only a few sources of confusion or sadness. I didn't give them space, and now they're demanding space.
Many people have told me they're simple people, that what I see is what I get, and I don't understand how and why they think that being "simple" is a quality. I am definitely not part of their club, neither do I try to be, I think that's fairly obvious. But there's also no way that other people are just sufficiently different from me and can just accept things that are affecting lives without experiencing emotional repercussions. Maybe I'm wrong. A friend once told me he started working with the homeless so he could "feel anything" because he wasn't even feeling empathy anymore. So really, being simple doesn't mean normal, it means apathetic. My two favorite people to leave the country within a week is forcing a reaction. I can push it away like I have, but to step away, go to a beach all alone, and take two weeks to think about it, apathy will be the last thing I feel. I'm excited about it because said reaction might bring the hunger for action back, for grabbing a pen and paper and writing stuff up. The last thing I would even want to be is apathetic. If I am, creativity dies.
The space I need to consult these losses and, really, the past few months, can't be made at home. Lord knows, what I really want to do is stay in my room, sleep for two weeks and do anything but work. Truth is, all I would be doing is watch movies with my Spaniards, drink gin and tonic and eat crap because I'm too lazy to cook. Routines are toxic if you want to make a change. My change is coming: I need to ban a few people from the heart because they left or should be leaving, have to identify something else to keep me entertained but that somewhat reckless behavior I sometimes show and, finally, have to answer a few procrastinated questions. Well, I don't have to do any of that but it's a good idea and I'd like to be smart. Lord knows I haven't been... No harm done, but it needs to stop. Mamma needs to get some distance and reevaluate. As comfortable as it would be, home isn't the most fertile ground for original thought.
My writing has definitely suffered. Okay, before I was a mess and often unhappy but even sadness is fodder for the words. What needs to come back is not the talent or ability to write but the willingness to allow those feelings. Sure, most of my writing was ranting, but once in a while my insane thinking produced wisdom and made my life easier in the process. Today, I'm too busy to think. I try not to because the only rational conclusion to be made of my decisions in the last few months would be that I'm stupid. That doesn't feel good to realize. But that would be writing that means something. That would be a message. And learning could happen as a result. This "sticking to what I know works" is running away from the potential for growth. If I stay in my hood, don't consider change or the possibility that my directions could be wrong, I won't move. And moving is what I ultimately need to do if I want my writing, my thoughts to come back. This can't happen at home. And so I go to Egypt, a place that has done this for me, in pursuit to come back with the answer; the answer to how not to get stuck, break free from bad habits and let originality back into a life that has changed drastically from a month ago. 
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