The words do not flow out of my mouth like they use to nor do my fingers dance along the keyboard creating a masterpiece. The constant feeling of having ideas and knowing word for word what I want to say has vanished into thin air.

I am no longer that person.

Empty, like a car on E. Empty like a kitchen sink as water slowly drips from the faucet. I am not full. I am not a waterfall. The overwhelming stream of confidence and flame has been put out. Stomped on like a small lit flame from a bonfire that was once surrounded by chatter and laughter, I feel nothing but the coldness. As the darkness engulfs me, I hold onto that small flicker. It’s not blue, orange, and red bright as can be but more like smoldering consumed by charcoal and parts of burnt marshmallows that have burned before my eyes.

Once enveloped with people, I am now left to pick up the chairs and tear down the party. This is a battle I have to fight alone. Nobody is going to understand why I’m still smoldering, why I’m still holding onto something I could have let go of long ago.

I can’t explain why I still do this. People say when you love something, you wake up every morning with a smile on your face ready for that career or that specific job. The falseness is enough to make me chuckle.

When you love something, you stay up late hours into the night, your mind swirling, heart beating at the speed of a hummingbird's wings. You don’t wake up on a Monday morning and roll out of bed singing Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah. Your love for it won’t show like the sun seeps through clouds on a bright blue sky day.

I’m sorry but this is my truth. When you love something, that does not mean it won’t become hard for you. There are days where it will seem like a chore. Days where it will keep you up, fidgety and unsettled, on edge about how to keep the flame glowing.

I am currently writing this early into the morning not because I want to but because I feel inclined to. I can’t sleep because of this.

I am restless.

And although it will aggravate me for the rest of my life on this lovely planet, I won’t do anything about it but continue with it.

It’s being restless that keeps me alive. It’s being unsure that keeps me from letting go.

Amidst the unbalanced and jittery lifestyle, it is an addiction that will not end.

In the darkest of times, my fingers still hit the keyboard; my mind still flows with something to be written down. It may not be at the speed of light or it may keep me up fighting myself how to say it, but it will be said.

For it’s during the troublesome times that keep me doing what I love the most.

Being restless is my second nature.

It’s real. This is real. There’s no other feeling I rather have.

Writing is an ongoing fight of man verse self. Trying to write is trying to figure myself out. And if there’s one thing I have learned from the constant feeling of typing away and then erasing it with one button because of my pain with the lousy words I have typed, it somehow all makes sense.

You haven’t lived until you’d lived restlessly.

A writer does not die once. A writer dies long before the heart stops beating for a writer loses life when the restlessness feeling leaves.

The everyday fight is not something we agreed with when we wrote our first words; when we constructed our first set of beautiful sentences.

But the everyday fight keeps us alive. And it is in those times when we fight that battle alone do we find our strength. Writers do not win every battle but they win the war.

There is strength in putting words on a page. There is pain, suffering and tears. In those lonesome hours when we fight long into the night, we find something greater than the sentences in front of us.

We found ourself.

Writing does not make me feel full or giddy or full of energy. It sucks every ounce of energy out of me. And it is in those moments, that I feel most alive.

Give your life to what you do and live restless.