Waiting for My Muse

“It is a great piece of skill to know how to guide your luck even while waiting for it.”

Baltasar Gracian

I think this will be a short blog because I’m tired and I want tomorrow to go well.  So this will be quick.  Honestly, I don’t even want to write.  Actually I do, but I know I have to get up early and I know I have a long day ahead of me.  Right now I feel uncertain about the future and I have to remember this:

House on the beach – no matter what!

So I’m writing and I’m waiting for my Muse to show.  It feels like she’s been gone forever.  It doesn’t matter.  Even if she goes to the mountains or the desert or to another planet, I will sit here and do my work.

This is one of the tests, isn’t it?   How badly do I want my house on the beach?   How badly do I want to spend my life with my Muse?  Am I willing to work when I’m tired?  Discouraged?  Afraid?  What if I have to spend my life alone?  What if no one reads my work?  What if my dreams are impossible?

There are two answers to those questions.  The first answer is a question.  That question/answer is, “So what?”  If I spend my life alone, unloved, unread and unnoticed, it doesn’t matter.  This is where I need to be.  This is what I need to be doing.  This is more important than sleep because it gives me rest.  It’s more important than food because it feeds my soul.  The only thing it’s not more important than is love.  Doing this is love.  It’s an act of love to God, to the world, to my friends and family and to myself.  It’s an act of love to my Muse. 

I am telling her, “I will be here until you come back.  If you never come back, then I will still be here.  Because waiting for you is all I know how to do.  I told you that I want to spend my life making you happy and that’s what I’m trying to do.  That’s why I write so much.  That’s why I get up when it’s still dark and it’s why I stay up late.  It’s why I spend so much time alone.  It’s why I read so much.  It’s why I’ve created so many impossible and unrealistic goals.  Because I love you and I want to make you happy.  So I’ll wait and I’ll write.  I’ll write in times of pain or sadness or fear.  I’ll write if I get panic attacks or when my ADHD overwhelms me.  I’ll also write in times of joy and victory.  I’ll write when things are going well.  None of it matters except that you find me waiting and working.”

There’s a second answer.  That answer is, “It’s just a matter of time.”  My answers, my hopes could all be realized tomorrow or in the next few minutes or in the next few years.  And yes, they could never be realized at all.  But I think they will be.  I just have to keep doing my work and keep moving forward. 

None of it matters anyway except that my Muse find me working.  Even if that day is far away.  Even if it’s never.

I just have to Get Started and Keep Going…and wait.