By now, everyone knows how much I like to talk about muses and my muses, and that really is the truth. The majority of them (character influencing) have been unreachable, intangible people. There have been several that were/are people I know, and for the most part I keep that knowledge to myself. The first time I told someone, he was cool with it. He still is and he’s a friend of mine. We don’t talk much, hardly see each other, but it’s always a pleasant experience when we do–he also loved the book he was in. In his case, he was strictly a character muse. The second time I told someone (also a character muse), it turned into a completely psychotic and frankly, Terrifying, event for me. It involved having to block him from social media, which was a real disappointment. After that, I vowed never tell anyone about their influence, inspiration and involvement in one of my stories ever again, even though I got a good reaction the first time. Even though it eats away at me that I can’t share what I consider to be something pretty damn amazing with the person who most deserves to hear it.

Of course, sometimes my mouth gets ahead of me, and this most recent time is an example of that. This time, it wasn’t only a character or just the story that was affected–it was both and two characters in two different stories, at that. I have never, in all of my writing life, had something so perfectly beautiful, immediate, or intense happen to me or my work. Anyone who has been paying attention to any of these posts over the years, or knows me in real life, knows that I wake up each day for my writing; that I am as compelled to create as I am to breathe. Without this, I truly feel that I have nothing, because everyone and everything else seems to move on without much warning, or even consideration that I might want to go along. I have no such thing as “home”. Writing is “home” to me. To have someone with whom I’ve crossed paths have this sort of effect for both the character(s) and story is a once in a lifetime thing. Truthfully: not just on my writing and I’d be a total liar to say that, in this case, something deeper didn’t also get tapped. Considering that I am actually quite hard to reach on a deeper and lasting level: This just Doesn’t Ever Happen. In this very moment, I’m questioning whether it actually did happen…I say this because I shared these sentiments with this muse, and I believed it was well and sincerely received.

For about five days.

I have learned that people don’t like to be told they inspire me. They say they do, and maybe they just change their mind. Maybe they think it becomes a responsibility (it isn’t) and then don’t want it anymore. It could be that it’s something really easy to forget, just like any other compliment. Whatever the case, I am feeling a pretty heavy weight in my heart that says the honor of this gift in my head/heart/soul, had an expiration date. It meant more to me, just as it always does.

I doubt I’m explaining this very well at all. I feel lost and, yes: utterly distressed. I’ve considered not finishing the story even though it’s so close to being done, even despite the detriment it will cause me to let it go.

What the hell happened??? What has this done to me??? Who was this person, Really???  I’ve never even had a lover–to whom I gave my entire heart, who straight up abandoned or even ghosted me–effect me like this. Someone shot an arrow this time and it struck hard and irretrievably deep. The barbs are so sunken and clenched in such a bite on all that I am, that I can’t even reality check my way out of this. Under normal circumstances, if someone met me just over a week ago and things shifted from ethereally warm and friendly to something inexplicably tepid at best (as seemed to be our last interaction), I would be able to just shrug it off and move on. Muses are replaceable–usually. But this is unshruggable. This is not a normal circumstance. Again, I ask:

WHAT. THE. HELL. HAPPENED???

I’m scouring my memory of our too few interactions to try and figure out how I might have given the wrong impression, overstepped bounds–Under-stepped bounds; gave too much of the right impression; gave insult, created unidentified trouble–anything to chalk this up as karmic backlash, because at this point, I have no other explanation. Under other circumstances, I would probably ignore all that too, but something in all this requires a resolution. Maybe it wasn’t an arrow–maybe it was a harpoon dart, and it has pinned me--all of me…mind, soul, heart…–to the wall of an endless cliff of WTF confusion. Now I’m just hanging here, waiting for the kraken to pull me off of it, harpoon and all, and swallow me up just so this will pass. Excuse the dramatics, but I think what I’m feeling right now warrants a few colorful metaphors. Trust me: it’s not nearly as painful for you.

It’s possible that I have, through unacknowledged wishful thinking, read too deeply and in several respects. I’m hardly patient, though I try to be, and that doesn’t help either. Shifts in other people’s moods are not my responsibility, but actions are louder than words and as that is a lesson my last relationship seared into me repeatedly, it’s one I’ll never forget. Until I have clarification otherwise, I will be unable to help thinking I had a hand in this change and I wish I could have the chance to repair that. It means enough to me that I would do whatever it takes. Situations matter to me, people matter to me: I care. But rarely am I affected like this, and in comparing this musing to all others, I’m not sure I ever have been–not like this, and not in any other kind of circumstance either. I care to a devastating degree this time and I can’t explain any of it beyond the words I’ve posted here…

I will write his story. I will continue working on the other project that he has also touched, even knowing that all I can do is try to hold fast to the snapshot of what of him inspired all of that, and me. As my life lessons never seem to be truly painless, and this is proving to be a crowning example, I know now that–no matter what comes to pass–I will never again reveal the identities of my muses, least of all to them.