I’ve been trying to set to work on my applications. For school acceptance, for grants, for scholarships- Anything that’s proof that I have some direction.

I need to -focus-. I need a plan, and it needs to be brilliant.
It’s been hard. I’ve been feeling foolish and heavy-hearted. Heavy, crushing down, and I’m so busy trying to squirm out from beneath it. Shrugging it off then stumbling over it.

I don’t think I’m being entirely honest. Maybe that’s what’s weighing on me.
I’ve got a lot to confess. I -always- feel like I’ve got a lot to confess. But I’m worried I’ll get it all wrong.

These aching truths are the place that art comes from. Art can be a confession or a lie and no one knows the difference. It can be all wrong and it can still make them smile, gifts and granted wishes.

But it’s not right, it’s not enough, its a mask, it’s not cutting to the heart of it.
But I need to get this out, and it needs to be ugly. It’s going to be an awful mess, my guts strewn about in some weird self-augury. It’s humiliating, its a wet and naked feeling, and so often its wrong, for shyness or hesitation. I need to keep digging until I get it out.

I go a distance, I get something down, I go back, I scold myself. I feel wrong and ashamed. It sounds too much like despair. That’s not right, that’s not me. They keep on saying its depression, but it’s not like that, its a fire, and I’m glowing with it sometimes, and sometimes its burning me up. It’s a good thing, its beautiful, its a powerful thing.

But I don’t feel like I can trust myself. I want to think there’s some instinct or intuition driving all of this, but after years of feeling lost, years of chasing it, it’s hard. I’m not home yet. I can’t be at home with this sense of urgency still hounding me. I get cornered by it, I break down crying and I don’t know why. I have theories but that’s all. I feel injustice, I get angry and don’t know if I’m right or wrong. Sometimes it is so clear, and then this guilty doubt sneaks up and stabs me in the gut.

It’s hard to find anyone I can trust to ask. Some want to prove their suspicions, others are too quick cosset me, and everyone has their oun motives and none of these have much to do with truth. I need an honest mirror. I need a map.

If there were some sort of pilgramage I could go on, I’d be gone. When I lived in the city, I would spend these hours wandering the streets, new and old, getting lost, feeling like I was hunting for something. Praying for grace to take hold of me.

I can find my grace in art: I can make things happen, sometimes effortlessly. I can kill in a stroke. I can fight forever.

Art can turn me into a machine. That’s why I wanted to go back to school, because they’ll work me raw and I’ll have some assignment to fill every sleepless hour. Something to account for the bruised eyes and cave dweller pallor, something to be a slave to. Something greater than myself. I’ll have less time for this self-indulgent nonsense. Less time to feel so human.

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