shutting down

I've kind of shut down, creatively, emotionally, mentally quite a bit over these last few weeks. It's a defense mechanism for me -- detachment. But I think that I'm almost ready to start opening up again. And we all know that good things happen when we open ourselves up.

I've had to say goodbye to a lot of things lately. To Chica, to columbus, to a life that I had grown weary of living. It's good to be back home. It's good to have familiar and loving people around me. And it's a little frightening to see faces that I've not dwelt on for years, people who I would have once considered good friends and confidants. They feel as if I left them behind for something different, and in a way, I suppose that I did. But they shouldn't feel that I forgot about them. I wish they wouldn't feel forsaken.

So, I've found employment, and I'm about ready to start propelling myself into life again. I am ready to move forward and find a new way of living, a fresh breath of life. In many ways, it is a return to the life I abandoned so many years ago with ideas of grandeur and success. I am ready to become a craftsman in abandon of artistry. And so I pick up the smallest chisel and start to chip away at this rock that has stood before me for so long - not to create a sculpture, but to simply make sand.