The past couple of weeks, I’ve disliked everything I’ve written.
New poems I’m working on, an essay I’ve been trying to write, Facebook statuses, comments on posts, feedback to clients, even emails responding to leads or text messages I’ve tried to compose.
I’ve looked back at old work and couldn’t make reasonable decisions about revision. Sometimes, “trash and burn” is the right answer, but not with everything.
I couldn’t figure out why, and wasn’t fully conscious of this dislike, stronger than dislike—disgust, even?—until I spoke the feeling out loud.
“We had hoped to hear your words tonight,” a friend said, at the end of open mic.
“I don’t like any of my words right now,” I said, and the weight of the truth shifted from my throat where it was blocking my voice and settled on my heart instead.
I don’t like any of my words right now.
This isn’t an unusual feelings for artists of all types, not liking our work. The cliched phrase “we’re our own worst critics” is cliched only because it’s a truth spoken over and over and over until it starts to lose any real meaning, and it doesn’t really offer any comfort, either.
I am used to being dissatisfied with my work, used to wanting to improve it, find a better way to say something. Even work I’m proud of in the moment, I’ll look back at and see changes I could have made. Yet, even in that dissatisfaction, there’s usually some joy, some recognition of “Oh, I like that,” some inspiration to keep me going.
The feeling of the past few weeks is not this usual dissatisfaction, and has had none of the joy that I find in writing.
The feeling of the past few weeks is one I haven’t felt for a while. Seven years, to be exact, and I didn’t put it all together until, after midnight, as I scrolled through Facebook memories from February 22, this one filled my screen:
Seven years ago, I was writing my dissertation. I was revising, trying to get it ready for my defense, which was scheduled for March 22nd.
I hated everything I was writing.
I was sure I would fail, almost wanted to fail, because then at least I could say, to all the people who encouraged me to complete my degree, “See? I was right. I should’ve dropped out. I told you so.”
I’ve found myself dwelling on the negative experiences of graduate school quite a bit, retelling the stories to people. I thought it was because of the standard answer I get when people learn I have a PhD. They’re impressed, they think it’s so cool, that it means I’m really intelligent, that the degree guarantees me a high-paying job and a cushy life. They don’t understand why I still grapple with regret.
The person I was when I finished graduate school was deeply unhappy. That defeated, deeply depressed, bitter person is who I was feeling every time I tried to write the past few weeks.
The phrase, “the body keeps the score,” taken from the book of the same title, is becoming almost cliched at this point. It’s featured in memes, now, and it feels like our cultural consciousness understands that we hold onto memories in our bodies, not just our minds (it’s almost like the body and mind aren’t separate).
What does the body remember? A lot that I’d like it to forget, and a lot that I’d like it to keep remembering.
Now that I’ve connected my feelings of the past several weeks to the memory of writing my dissertation, here I am, writing, and I don’t hate the words on the screen.