Large parts of my life were defined by such uncontrollable emotional chaos and impenetrable darkness. The desperate pursuit of unreachable goals, living in the shadow of the highest of expectations, vivid imagination beyond reality, the constant search for that missing puzzle piece.

Like Jacob battled an Angel of God, I battled my own Lorelei as I dragged myself into the shadow. Leaving myself bruised and bleeding from my own desires and expectations. It was powerful, intense and without comparison. The passion of an imprisoned artist, and I was never very good with confinement.

It leaves me confused: Why is gently trotting forward not nearly as intense as the painful pursuits of the heart?

Now that I phase between the bland “meh” and dishonest “it’s fine” fueled by frustrating discontent, I wonder which part is the more me. An intellect fueled by creativity, madness, words and colours on a canvas, has been replaced by something not quite like productivity. A business demon sits in the seat of the soul. Like I ever gave a shit about making money, the comfortable lifestyle is now the pillow I rest my head on each night. Stability rocks my boat and I fear it will capsize.

Life, a nagging drop of water repeatedly dripping on my forehead. Distraction in all the little things I cannot not do. Surrounded by people who see someone else, drowning in work to distort the mirror reflection. As though emerged in a marathon without course, discourse, goal or ocean train stations. Existence compressed into the shape of the ever-shrinking hallways. But maybe this is what I always felt the scene looked like no matter the stage…

I suppose this hallway provides a nicer life. In our battles, Lorelei cut such deep wounds, and as they healed, unlike for Jacob, they didn’t come with a blessing from God, but with the bittersweet irony of adulthood. But maybe that really is the same, after all…

Shaped by society’s encouragement to just blend in, to be alright, invisible in the masses. Wallpaper. But the greatness that I on occasion glimpsed in the words of a madwoman flashes with its absence as sanity arrives. Why does the artist die when life goes on?

I often ask myself if the scientific route really was the correct one, I enjoy it, and I am somehow good at it, or so I think in moments of self-belief. Yet, I fantasise about escaping into the footsteps of the damaged poets, the mad artists, and the overpopulated masses of failed authors who think they have something meaningful to write, or perhaps have no other choice in order to silence the screams on the inside…

Is it a lack of time? A lack of motivation? A self-annihilating confusion? Pursuits of other missions and visions and illusions and convolution. Running a marathon without a route, without a destination. I was never a very good runner. Am I a charlatan, faking the words on this page like the imposter I feel like? How do you remain true to a self that hides behind the curtain? Hiding so no one sees that she is naked. Naked in all her glory.

I feel less, I am comforted. I feel different, I am confused. I feel more, I am uncomfortable.

I miss myself.