as some of you noticed, i didn’t publish my studio notes for a long time. not for eleven months, almost a year. i didn’t do much journaling during that time either. it wasn’t that i had nothing to write about. oh no, plenty going on, still is. plenty to say, forever will be.
i just could not write.
could not write. ME. someone who has written every day of my life since i could hold a pencil!
the words simply would not come, would not flow. and probably wouldn’t have made any sense if they had.
the easiest times for me to write have always been when i’m experiencing some kind of setback. or heartbreak. or turning point of some kind. not so this time.
as was the case for most people (many in much more profound ways than mine), the pandemic altered the course of my life. for personal and professional reasons, i’ve had to switch gears, create a new story, move in a different direction. it’s not all negative, it’s not all positive. it just is. and we’ve all been required to roll with it.
yet i found myself strongly resisting this particular crossroad that i needed to face. i felt more tired than usual, though i was doing much less than normal. depressed even. and instead of pouring my heart out into my journal, working through it all with pen and paper, finding solutions through my handwritten words as i had so many times previously, my inner voice felt stifled.
and i just could not write.
writing has always been my refuge, my way of making sense of the world and my place in it. and so it was completely bewildering to me. not feeling sorry for myself or seeking sympathy today – just trying to understand this temporary-but-prolonged lull in my writing, trying to understand why this period in particular produced such an interesting and unusual-for-me response.
and celebrating a bit too, as i find myself tentatively-but-certainly beginning to write again.
have you noticed any unique reactions of your own to our drastically-changed lives over the last two-plus years?
tweet
