“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” – Ernest Hemingway.

I am offended by the blankness of the page before me. If this page had eyes, they would be watching me expectantly, waiting for my next move, taunting me with the blink, blink, blink of the cursor, hungry for words.

I hate that it is filled with nothing, so contrary to the something that I wish to fill it with instead.

It should be regarded as general knowledge that a shortage of inspiration is only fed by the notion that inspiration is something celestial, a thing that is handed down to those who place themselves in stimulating conditions.

Why do I feel as if I can only be depended upon to create words worth reading if I have been struck by an electrifying rod of ingenuity?

Having a passion or calling is not something that can be beckoned at convenient times. Inspiration is not an ethereal gift. If you have a passion that throws you forward day by day, wakes you up in the morning, makes you view the world through a uniquely tinted lens, you don’t have time to let it disintegrate with neglect. There is no right moment to act upon your passion, and if you’re really still looking for a sign, for abstract inspiration to kickstart your efforts, here it is.

I write because I have to. Often I do not want to, nor do I think I have anything worthwhile to put on paper, but I do it because there is an intangible compulsion that wills me to do so.  I write because I have a lot of muddled gunk inside of my mind that just doesn’t make sense until it’s broken up into words on a page, staring blankly at me one moment and littered with sentences the next.

So having a passion, or at least one like this, can be both burdensome and liberating. It is a paradoxical relationship that makes no sense and I won’t attempt to unravel it’s meaning. All I can do is write and hope that all of these words will mean something to someone.

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I want to say two things about heartbreak, because I’ve been heartbroken by my own passions and expectations more times than I can count.

Indeed– I said “my own passions and expectations.” Because isn’t that how it always is? Isn’t heartbreak something we take on upon ourselves, something we willingly move toward in a blind, hopeful pursuit of happiness and satisfaction?

Heartbreak is a risk. We risk being hurt, distraught, embarrassed. Broken.

It is brave.

People who have never been heartbroken about anything, never felt the disappointment of an untimely ending or an unforeseen calamity, can’t learn how to be strong in the ways that make a person courageous. Heartbreak, while awful, is a rite of passage that renews itself with every endeavor. It returns, it breaks us, it strengthens us. To build muscle, one must tear the fibers of the muscle in order for it to grow. Such is heartbreak. Such is life.

*******

So about the blank page.

Well, it’s not so blank anymore.