Into Nothingness

From my second floor apartment in this quiet neighborhood of Brooklyn, I can hear the tenant below practicing piano. He or she plays I think almost everyday, and I find the notes mellow and soothing. Now, I'm not sure if he/she is a teenager, a composer, an engineer, or a housewife. I have no clue. I just hear the person playing, day after day, most evenings, and in the afternoon hours of the weekend.

There is also a woman who sings in my apartment building. I hear her alto voice in the evenings sometimes; she's practicing opera. She could be an actress or a soon-to-be actress.

And here I am. It's Sunday, and my boyfriend has come and gone; he works all day on weekends so we don't have the ability to walk through the park or go to the beach on my day off like other couples can. It's okay because I don't really like to be seen in my bathing suit anyway, but it'd be nice to have the option.

I should be writing. I should be finishing my fanfiction. I should be writing my sitcom and carrying it around to shove it into the faces of NBC or HBO or CBS or ABC execs, pleading, "Give me a job where what I do is meaningful." But I'm not. Instead, I'm doing laundry and scrubbing the tub on the Lord's day of rest. My mother doesn't give me grief for this. She, after all, is a neat freak and would straighten up the house on the Holiest of holidays. Of course, I know this really doesn't matter to either of us; it's simply an old Croatian/Catholic tradition and we felt we should continue.

But I'm getting off track.

Unlike the piano player and the opera singer, I am not honing my skills and trying to make progress. Instead, I'm being voyeuristic (using my ears as Jimmy Stewart used his lens in Hitchcock's Rear Window) and trying to imagine why they do what they do. Why do they love their craft so much more than I do these days? Why am I not craving to write anymore? Have I become that mundane? Do I no longer wear the label of writer or artist? Have I lost my creativity?

I've tried. I have. I stopped taking pills that would alter my mood and make me complacent; I know that I write my best when I'm racked with sobs or depressed beyond belief. Well, Widow Sadness and her estranged lover Master Anger returned but didn't bring Lady Creativity. I feel as if I had opened Pandora's Box but Hope wasn't inside with all the rest of the world's torments.

Of course, this leads to doubt. I doubt my skills. I doubt my purpose. I doubt my career choice. Why haven't I been writing? Why haven't I finished my Harley Quinn tale? I love that character, yet I let her hang in limbo without resolution.

I don't know how to fix this void. How does one FORCE herself to be creative?