"Your sadness is over an absence that is not new. It feels new, but it is only newly remembered."

I recently saw this quote on Twitter and immediately made it one of my favorites.  I don't know who the original author is and I couldn't find out much when I did look for it.  But it struck a chord with me.  It struck a chord straight to my heart.  I've been living my life for so long trying to fill an absence I lost months ago.  An absence I lost years ago.  An absence I lost more than 20 years ago.  Every day I live with this whole in my heart that I seek to fill by excess, whether it's food, drink or some other activity my obsessive compulsive nature latches onto.

There are only two things I've ever truly wanted in life: To write and to be loved.

I've been writing since I was a kid, as long as I can remember.  On some level, I think it's one of the few things in life that truly make me happy.  The world can be falling apart around me and as long as I pick up a pen and a piece of paper, everything will be all right.  I haven't always used that persistent nag to get me through the rough times.  But when the world was ending before me and I thought there was no light, writing has always been there for me.

In my delusion, I thought that I could be the type of writer I am and find love.  Find someone to spend the rest of my life with me.  I know, even typing this, that several people prominent in my life who care about me are going to object to this next statement.  I now realize this isn't possible.  Life has shown me that no matter how hard and how much I love, I simply will not find the person who can love me that much back.  I don't think it's because of the writing, I don't think it's because of the type of person I am, but I do believe it's because they realize that I want something they can never give me.

They cannot make me feel the way writing does, and I will resent them for that whether they realize it or not.  It will make me angry at them, it will make me judge them and it will make me go to great lengths to convince myself that I'm at fault (whether I am or not.)

Whenever I've been happy in a relationship, I've had issues writing.  Even writing work has suffered and been like pulling my own teeth out.  I find when I'm happy, it's the perfect storm for extreme writer's block.  My creativity has no outlet, it buries itself and so when something does go wrong, I go off the deep end mentally and emotionally.  Without the creative writing outlet - despite how happy I am - I find myself floundering with emotions that come spilling out in all the worst possible ways.

This really has led me to believe that I cannot truly find both.  This isn't to say others can't find both; I'm saying I can't find both.  Perhaps, I'm not truly mean to find both.  Maybe I do have to pick and choose which one I want.  I used to think it was love, but now I firmly believe it's writing.

So, that is the choice I make.