Vertigo Schmertigo!

As December's days dwindle and the new year looms in the not so distant future, I have had time to consider 2012 and its many ups and downs (hey, that's funny when you consider that vertigo can take you from standing up straight to being flat on the floor...begging the room to stop spinning so violently). Vertigo is an attack on one's sense of balance. It can be caused by any number of things (including those which cannot be found with an MRI or an evil test that blows air into your ears to see how you react...but I digress). What I have found is that I spend an inordinate amount of time investing in other people's success and dreams and happiness. I have sacrificed time, money, and surely a few other things to make sure that others are able to pursue their dreams. Meanwhile, I am barely doing the minimum daily requirement to sustain my own artistic calling. I say that I am limited by my job and my motherhood duties but that's not accurate. I hide behind those things and rationalize that other people are a better and easier investment...when I know that is not necessarily true, just convenient. Thus, my output is not aligned with my intake and this leads to the imbalance that is vertigo's powerful stranglehold on my creativity.

So, with a self-diagnosis of vertigo as the result of an imbalance of time invested in other people compared to time invested in my own talents, I'm headed off into the new year with a continued and sharper focus on my writing. I have treated it like a hobby that comes after all of the more important things. Writing will now return to its rightful place among the most important things. For every reminder in my calendar that deals with other people's gifts, there will be one for my own gifts as well. Instead of simply reading other people's good writing, I will add my own to the mix and see what happens. I will accept the warm invitations into the venues where artists dwell, work, share, and live. I will become a part of the active artistic community instead of sitting on the voyeuristic sidelines. (Lord help me, I think I just realized that I stopped breathing two sentences ago!)

The prognosis is good. I will restore the balance in all of my life's accounts. Leaks and drains will be patched and plugged. Rips and tears will be stitched and mended. Old wineskins will be mounted on the wall in memoriam and the new wineskins will be carried close to my heart where they may be filled with new revelations waiting to be poured out. When the Spirit says, "Move!" I will move. When the Muse says, "Write that down!" I shall write that down. When the Sirens say, "do it later...listen to our song and drown it all out..." I'll put wax in my ears and sit down with a pen (or an iPad) and write until they get laryngitis from trying to break my concentration with their seductive song of "it's easier (and safer) to just enjoy other people's work".

The way I see it, the worst thing that can happen is that I'll litter cyberspace and the blogosphere with fits and starts that ramble on without ever say much of anything. The best thing that can happen is that...I might actually be good at this thing and someone's life will be touched, inspired, or changed. (And I may even have more time and money to pour into the others who are risking it all for the sake of their gifts and passions!)

If you are among the gifted (and I am certain that you are) I invite you to join me in the restoration of our balance and the pursuit of dreams and real happiness. (Or in the words of James Brown, "Get up offa that thang...and dance (or write, or employ whatever your gift is) until you feel bettah!"