I've lost a piece of my soul

The weather just began getting warmer a few days ago. I'm feeling as if I should be cleaning; getting the store ready to reopen for the upcoming summer season; placing merchandise orders and building new displays, but that's now part of my past. For the last nineteen years all those things took place in March and April, and now for the first time there is an empty space.

I'm looking for a job, and have been ever since the shop closed. I didn't expect to find much available during the winter but now that many businesses are gearing up for the summer there should be plenty of options. Maybe I'll have to work some weekends but likely not all, and that's something most people would want, rather than working every Saturday and Sunday for months as I've done. A day off will likely be a "normal consideration" so the crushing non-stop schedule that had become routine throughout the summer is behind me. There are some great little businesses, amusement parks, and attractions around here and if I'm lucky I'll get to work for some of the long-time local owners....

What I can't find is my passion. That thing that makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning is gone, and along with it, the inspiration that used to flow from  my fingertips as I created art out of odd things and strange items. To me it seemed like magic when it happened - and given that the ability to create and make things had only come to me in the last five years - it was magic. Only in the last several years was a fragmented brain able to function normally, and with it came this incredible sense of being able to carry an idea or a concept for a sculpture or piece of art - for the first time in my life. Before then? I was a shop owner yes, but after struggling for years was still unable to keep focused enough to actually build something....what grew inside of me then now appears to have died with the store.

Even this series of posts and articles, which during the final 90 days was something I craved to write, has become so difficult. What used to pour out of my heart and mind, so urgently in fact that I'd need to capture my feelings by furiously typing on my phone, has fallen silent. The words are labored and no longer run freely, with this being the first time in months that I'm writing. Caught off guard at seeing some old advertising materials and photos of my shop from the past, I'm somehow brought back to this blog today. But what I want is the ability to feel whole again - not just for a fleeting moment - but to have that peace in my spirit.


I have lost a piece of my soul.