Withdrawal Symptoms

…suck.

I haven’t drawn/written in almost two months.

I say almost because last week I managed to finish colouring in a sketch that had been sitting around for weeks, luring me away from my lab readings and assignments to spend time with my lonely coloured pencils.

(Which makes it sound like I relapsed while trying to recover from addiction. Hah.)

I try to draw a least one picture a month. And when I say draw, I really mean paint/colour/ink/CG/whatever an artwork. It has to be finished for it to count.

I currently have two linearts to paint and one half-finished CG. It really kinda hurts when they’re so close and I can’t touch them.

The last two months have been hard because there aren’t enough hours in a day, or minutes in an hour. University actually kinda sucks. I’m usually tired because I stay up late to do my readings and finish assignments. And after one assignment, you get another. Lab quiz after lab quiz. Analysis after essay after essay after lab report after analysis after essay. And now exams.

(Yeah, I whinge like no tomorrow. Deal with it.)

It’s pretty bad when instead of studying at uni like everybody else; you hide at a desk in the library and secretly draw. And I hunch over so people can’t see what I’m doing and I get really paranoid whenever people walk past and I quickly use a book or page to hide it.

(I’m a loser, but at least I know it.)

My mum asked me once whether I like drawing more than writing, or writing more than drawing. I told her that was a silly question.

When I am unable to write, I draw. And when I am unable to draw, I write. That’s it.

Maybe it’s a bit easier to deal with not writing because I have a serious love/hate relationship with it. Really, it would take a whole other blog post to explain that. But it’s okay to not be physically writing, because I am permanently writing away in my head.

Honestly. That’s all I do.

I have difficulty with words and arranging them on the page like I want. But I’m always, always thinking and planning and creating stories in my mind. It could just be a certain person I glanced at in the bus, or how that boy was lighting up the girl’s cigarette for her, or the way the overweight man averted his gaze when I walked past as if he was ashamed. I just keep thinking and thinking and swallowing up all these stories that appear. It’s really crowded in here.

I just have to hold on, because in a couple of weeks I’ll be able to draw and write again.

But in the end, it’s a cycle, isn’t it? As much as it pains me, there’ll be assignments and work and life outside of my whimsical thoughts. 

Maybe this is also an addiction I can’t fight.

Maybe I’m just truly diseased beyond cure.

…it’s getting really crowded in here.