Art: Only for the lonely and love-lost?

The saying goes, "Hindsight is 20/20" - but for me it's better phrased, "Hindsight is scary."  Oftentimes when I look back at a relationship or a phase of my life, yes, I clearly see things that I was completely blind to before, and those things typically scare the living daylights out of me.  

Sometimes what I see is how totally WRONG a person was for me - so what scares me is that I was able to think they were right for so long.  Sometimes what I see is how untrue to myself I was for a period of time.  ["untrue" used here as an all-encompassing word for not showing myself love or respect in a myriad of ways]  That in itself is obviously not okay, and to add to it that I had no idea I was being untrue to myself?  So scary - because to me it begs the question: What is stopping me from doing that again in the future - or even right NOW - without knowing it?  The fact that I am someone who has the capacity to pull the wool over my own eyes scares me to death.  

I had an interesting conversation with someone recently about the "blind-spots" that we all have in our life...  
This person's take on them was mind-boggling to me because he was completely accepting of the fact that he just plain has blind-spots to certain things.  I was struck by how calm and okay with it he was.  For me, when I realize I have a blind-spot, I am so completely upset at the discovery that I put full-force life effort into eliminating the blind-spot.  Am I successful?  The jury is still out, but I guess it makes me feel better to know that I'm doing what I can to eliminate them.  

Maybe this makes me a control-freak, the fact that blind-spots scare me so.  In fact, clearly it does have a lot to do with control: the nature of blind-spots is that they are things that are out of my hands.  I've already had to accept that many things in this world are out of my hands - but those are things that don't come from within me - those are things like weather, like the actions of other people, natural disasters, acts of god, etc.  NOT things that come from within me.  The fact that I could be responsible for my own unhappiness, undoing, self-harm - and not know it??  That is NOT acceptable to me.  

Maybe this also makes me someone who is way too hard on myself.  Through therapy sessions over the last 3+ years, I have been told over and over again to be "gentle" with myself.  It's amazing how easy that isn't.  When you've spent most of your life being critical and demanding of yourself, it's hard to turn it off.  (It's also hard not to point that perspective on others in your life, too - but that's a whole 'nother conversation).  I envied my partner-in-conversation the other night, because he was at peace with the blind-spots in his life.  Me?  I want to stab mine with a knife.  [My, that came out quite violently, now didn't it?  I'm not going to delete it, though.]  

What, you may ask, is it that's gotten me so riled up, as of late?  What recent hindsight-reveal has upset me?  The answer lies here in this very blog, in the frequency I've been inspired to write and how often.  In the timeline of this calendar year, I was in a serious relationship from August through mid-November.  Take a look at the dates I've published entries this year - and I dare you not to notice a lull in my writing that parallels that timeframe.  You can even see in my "Autumn" entry that I was starting to realize it.  

It's scary for me to realize that something "good" like a relationship could result in my creativity being stifled.  Not only did my writing decrease during the timeframe in question, but neither did I also do any art, any crafting at home - something I've always loved.  I didn't feel much inspiration or creativity at all, sad to say.  And the most impressive part of all of this?  Since having ended that relationship just a few weeks ago, I've had an OUTPOURING of creative inspiration.  I've written a ton, I've gotten so many great ideas, my life as a whole just feels more... creative.  I was hanging out with a dear friend of mine quite recently, and she literally paused in conversation and said, "Holly, you are glowing right now."   

And it's true - I feel great.  I can't tell you how fulfilling it is for me to process life via writing - and getting to share that writing with all of you.  The fact that some of you are people I don't even know that well - that especially is exciting to me.  

But WHAT does it say about me that if I'm in love, I'm not driven to write or produce art of any kind?  I've only been actively writing for the last year - so maybe this one relationship was a fluke, yes.  Maybe the fact that I didn't feel driven to write, while in this relationship, is indicative that it was not the right relationship for me.  But WHAT IF that's just me, in a relationship?  What if putting my all into a relationship (which is the only way I operate) leaves no room for the creative outlet of writing or art?  Maybe Single-Holly has so much angst, and no personifiable outlet for it, that she feels the need to write, and maybe Relationship-Holly will never have that kind of drive?  It's not necessarily wrong or bad, but with the way I critique myself, I see it that way.  I consider myself an artist of sorts, in many forms - one specifically, as a writer.

In fact, a great quote I once read is part of why I find it justifiable:

I had to look up that quote to share it with you, and had forgotten about the last line "scared to death" - funny how the universe works, isn't it?  The fact that I expressed that sentiment in a totally different arena earlier in this piece, but that it ties in so well here.   :)

The point is: I get a lot of joy out of writing, and I'm told from time-to-time that others get joy from it, too.  It upsets me to think that finding true love could rob this from me in my life - especially because finding true love is the absolute most important quest in my life.  Actually, let me re-phrase: it USED to be the most important quest.  I'm currently re-focusing my life to where the quest to find complete and utter SELF-love comes first.  Finding true love with another is second.  Also finding life happiness for myself is somewhere high up in that mix.  The point is, love and happiness are what life's journey, for me, is about.

But if you think about it - so many of the best songs, best poems, best art pieces - come from people who are heartbroken, lonely, unsatisfied, unfulfilled.  Even if I did do a lot of writing while in love, maybe it wouldn't even be interesting to anyone else.  Maybe the things that ring true most for others are the few pearls that come from loss and devastation?  And certainly I can appreciate the beauty in that - and can be appreciative that anything good can come from something sad... But how unfortunate if someone completely happy and satisfied might have less artistic work to share with the world?  

I hope so much this isn't true.  I hope it's just a matter of me continuing to follow my bliss, and if I do - if I can keep on a track that is true to myself and loving of myself - that I'll still have the desire to share creatively with the world in a way that also resonates with the world.  Wish me luck with that.  And wish me luck with the journey to be gentle with myself and forgiving with myself.  I'll end with one more quote:

"Be not the slave of your own past.  Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old."  

- Ralph Waldo Emerson