As you know I have not been engaging as much as I was. Some of that is due to the end of the semester and closing one chapter for another. Some of it has been spending a great deal of time on something that has just proved to be frustrating and stressful. Perhaps that should tell me something about whether or not that becomes a part of where I am going. Or maybe it’s just that I’m getting to the end of a five-year reinvention cycle. I have also been reading about how constant engagement with social media impacts your brain and your ability to focus, think deeply and creatively.

As those who have followed my ramblings for a long time know, throughout my life I have repeated cycles of getting bored, reinventing and mastering something for about 5 years. Then it hits and I am ready for something new. I think that is where I am now as Accidental Icon turns 5 in a few months. Since my practice when writing this blog is to write spontaneously and about what I feel, what has come out in other writing projects I have been attempting is the theme of reinvention. Rather than let that writing become a fruitless enterprise I am going to share it here. As always your comments and support sustain and inspire me. I think this first bit describes exactly how I feel right now. I also realized during this challenging experience is that I become animated when I am collaborating with others. I can’t say what I do because it only becomes real in my transaction with people, places and things. So over the next few weeks, I thought I would share what I wrote and see what we can all make together of this reinvention story.

I usually know the time is coming when I start to experience sensations of restlessness and can’t be still. The walls seem to close in around me. I find it hard to breathe easily. My legs twitch involuntarily. I’m dissatisfied with everything. I sigh a lot. I’m told I get petulant and bitchy. Good friends and family call me pissy. My usually discriminating palate defaults to blandness. My body is lethargic, moves in slow motion and feels like I am a hundred pounds heavier.  I’m not able to find something to wear that satisfies me, feels like me. Even worse I start to not care about what I wear. I bore myself and probably others. I say, “That’s not fair,” at least 10 times a day.

When I can’t stand feeling this way anymore, I need to find a way to get some relief. The feeling is akin to being underwater too long, you believe your lungs are about to burst. You think you can’t take it a moment longer, and then you break through the surface of the water and take a big gasp of lifegiving air. The sky reappears, the same yet somehow stunningly different. It startles with its brightness. It has a limitless possibility. That’s the moment I want, the fix I need. It’s inspiration propelling me to reinvent.

Have you ever experienced times like this? Where and how have you found inspiration?