I've been avidly fighting my recent temptations to make ultimatums with myself. I don't know when it began, maybe I've been doing it all my life and have just become aware of it lately. Regardless, I've been getting annoyed by myself and my obsession with making declarations of my current state of being, or naming phases that I'm going through. In doing so, I dig myself into pits, put myself in positions that I need to mentally get out of rather than just letting things ride.

For example: I haven't been journaling as much as I used to. Blogging, personal writing, whatever. Certain things throughout the day will remind me of this regression of writing, such as an inability to put words together as easily as I could a couple of months back, or waking up at 12:30 in the afternoon and wondering where went the days when I couldn't sleep past 9am because my fingers were itching to write. That's step one, recognizing that some entity of something exists--in this case, for lack of a better term, we'll call it "writer's block." Next, being the person I am, I automatically go on an excavation to find the root. In the case of this recent "writer's block," I most often attribute it to the loss of my last 8 months of writing, which contributed to a general lack of morale, and eventually the lack of motivation to write as often. At this point, I have placed myself inside of a "phase," thus allotting myself the responsibility (and obligation) to grow out of it. The fact is, if I never recognized myself as being in a "writer's block" or allowed adequate recognition as this being a current state of being, it would be much easier for me to buck up and start writing, or living, or doing whatever it is that I could or should be doing. And so I find myself doing this in a lot of areas of my life. When I tell myself "Gee, I've been eating really unhealthy this week," it makes it that much harder for me to "switch" back to a healthy diet. Or the more I feel like the things that I've been writing are irrelevant to anything else to any other person, or the whole scheme of the universe for that matter, the further I hurl myself into the outskirts of oblivion.

Most recently, in my increased focus on my creativity, I've been kicking around the mindset that I'm not in the place to be in any kind of romantic relationship whatsoever, and furthermore, don't see myself wanting one anytime in the near future. Now I know, I know, that kind of mentality is only supposed to be reserved for nuns and hermits. And while my intuition has been egging me to recognize these inklings, deep inside the neo-hippie-poet is like "C'mon duuuuude...you can't say that you're not into loooooooove...ain't nothing like romance, maaaaaan..."

I've always considered myself a romantic (and I don't mean it in the kind of way to make women say 'awwww he thinks he's a romantic,' I mean in the kind of way that's pretty sappy, even for women who would usually saw 'awww' to the presence of romance). When I was a kid, I used to literally play games with my own heart, putting the future of all kinds of love in little bets. During piano lessons, I'd tell myself that if I played Minuet in G three times perfectly, it meant GIRL A liked me back. Or after taking out the garbage, if I got back into the house before the garage door finished closing, it meant GIRL B and I were meant to be. I found every corner of my life to conjure realistic-but-not-so-realistic fantasies that would place me in situations with the woman I was currently enamored by. So much laughter, so much smiling, so much contentment.

Which is why I'm pretty baffled myself as to why, lately, the thought of being in any kind of relationship either bores, repulses, or freaks me out. The dates I've been on recently, I've been pretty farty, not always so much because I'm not feeling the person, and more because the overall idea of being so intimately associated to someone leaves me farty, and I can't stand to work up contrived un-fartiness and accidentally stumble into a relationship. It's been over a year and a half since my last relationship, but that surely hasn't protected me from systematic heartache. That can't always be blamed on the other person. Situations in which I've shied away from open opportunities to intersect with wonderful people still give me plenty to lament over during the moments before my eyelids slide shut. And so, as I spiral further into this life of a writer (and the writer's notoriety for not being able to keep lovers sure doesn't help), I'm increasingly approached with the question over whether I'd place my art or my love higher. After all, who has the energy to nurse the gems of culture and society, and still put enough into cultivate the magic of romance? The answer, which was always difficult for me to choose (except when I was in love) has easily tipped on the side of my art, at least as of late.

The reason is much easier to break down than you may expect. It's the difference between art and love, at least based on my experience. My art only hurts me when it's absent. My love only hurts me when it's present. It's obvious enough.

But then what happens when the poet decides that he doesn't need to love? In my mind, it's possibly one of the greatest tragedies, as well as the crux in which my dilemma lies. Regardless of subject matter, in the end all of my writing is fueled by perception of self, and reflection onto others. The realms of love provide the opportunity for reflection onto reflection. And that's pretty much the Megazord of states of being.

Truly, I don't know what I am waiting for, in light of all this. Perhaps to intersect with someone who completely obliterates any preconceptions of how poorly love fits into the little shoebox diagram of a life I've set up for myself. Or maybe for me to just get lonely enough to need more than just my poems to keep me company. In any such event, I await eagerly.