creativity versus anxiety

I've been feeling that familiar clench in my jaw lately, that slight skin tingle, that too-much-going-on-in-my-head-at-the-same-time sensation.

I know this.

It's pre-anxiety attack anxiety.

Or, maybe, it's the need to create.

For the past year plus I haven't been immersed in a project. I haven't been compelled, driven, lost in something that's me but separate from my life.

I haven't had that place to go to escape from reality.

I haven't had deadlines and research and photos to search for.

Ideas to sell. Stories to tell.

Instead, that energy's gone to the dark side, mostly banished by medication, but cropping up as something evil, to be avoided at all costs.

Maybe, though, it's quietly shouting from the edges of my mind that it needs to be nurtured, not ignored, celebrated, not censured.

The problem is, I don't know how to dive in again. My last book burned me to a crisp, left me empty and beaten. I lost faith in the system. And faith in myself.

But there are glimmers, now that I'm recognizing them for what they are, that I need to jump back off the cliff.

I'm gasping for air here. No wonder I'm having trouble breathing.

My soul is disintegrating without that part of me being front and center. Or at least present and accounted for.

Part of me is ready to let go again. I feel it simmering.

It's time.