I’m in a really good place right now in terms of not withdrawing to some dark recess of my brain to think about bad memories, or worry about what future health problems might occur. That is really weird for me at this time of year. Normally September/October would be the time when my blog would have an influx of dark poetry, and I haven’t written any poems in a few weeks. So, not great in that respect. I do think my lack of poetry is partly because cancer survivorship is where most of my inspiration has come from for the past couple of years now, and partly because I’ve just been busy with other things such as my degree and my literary magazines, so I haven’t dedicated time to writing poetry. It’s almost as if I have to be unhappy in order to be creative. But as much as I love writing, that would be too big of a sacrifice to make. I know there’s a saying about suffering for your art or whatever, but there has to be a balance.

And I think the balance has tipped. Something definitely feels a bit different these days. At one point, fear became familiar and almost comfortable – if I stay in that place for long enough I don’t want to leave. I’m not expressing this too well because I don’t want to think about it too much, but I think now that I’ve been away from that place in my brain for a while, I don’t want to go back there. One day when I am back there I will do my best to describe it, but for now I’ll just have to find something different to write about. Something happy. Now, that would make a change. I don’t really know how to write about happy things. I write about death and grief and wallow in the emo-ness of it all. Is there inspiration to be found in light places? It just doesn’t come that naturally to me. But it seems like I’ll have to take a closer look a those shadowless streets if I want to write a poem any time soon.

Then again, make no mistake: darkness will come eventually. It has a habit of sneaking up on us. And I think that’s part of the darkness – the fear of falling into a trap, of being too happy for too long, and then brought back down to earth. I feel like i have to end this by saying that I know things won’t be great forever, so as not to tempt fate. I don’t even believe in fate, not even a little bit. But that’s a discussion for another time. I digress. And anyway, I’m not saying things are perfect now. But I have been thinking about bad things less, and it has felt good. I can maybe attribute that to a handful of things. Maybe I should try figuring out exactly what they are and write about those.