On Losing Your Muse (Or, It's Okay to Let Go)

2012...the last time I wrote a blog post.

Wow.

I'm sure nobody remembers me, but that does not stop me from putting fingers to keyboard and reaching out to whoever will listen. I used to be a writer. In fact, I was a method writer, kind of like a method actor....you know, the kind who become their character while they're filming a movie. I became my characters as I wrote my novels because that was my escape. I thought it was my creativity doing its thing, but only recently - with all the life changes I've gone through - have I come to realize that it wasn't my creativity but rather my psyche that was "doing its thing", providing me with an escape from a life I really did not want but never had the courage to walk away from. 

That creativity was fueled by my muse, who I can only identify as Spain. Yes, an entire nation served as my inspiration for every single story I wrote. Actually, it was specifically the city of Seville, and I was obsessed with the life I had once lived there and could not let go. I now see how pathetic I was.

I have since found my courage. I changed my life. I kept bridges in tact, but I moved on.

I fell in love.

And then one morning, I woke up to realize something that should have made me sad, but didn't. I was looking at a picture of Seville that a friend had posted, and I thought to myself, What a pretty place. 

It was that bland, my thought. That simple. That emotionless. What a pretty place. That's it. No nostalgia to tighten my stomach and grip my heart, no longing - or añoranza  - that I had spent years writing about, no sense of incompleteness or that I was in the wrong place in this world. I just thought, What a pretty place.

That's when it hit me that I had moved on. And just today, months since that revelation that Spain is now a pretty place I can enjoy in photos, it occurs to me why I haven't written anything in the past couple of years...

I have lost my muse.

But here is the beauty of it...

I'm alright with that. I am happy where I am in life, for the first time since I lived in Seville, which was exactly have my lifetime ago. As I soon celebrate the birthday that unarguably sends me into the depths of middle age (but 50 is the new 40, right?), I will work on nurturing my creativity through muse-free writing, through the knowledge that I can be my own source of inspiration, and I am excited to see where this will all go.

What excites you lately? Let's feed the creative passion and share our motivation.