I have given up on writing.
My writing has come to a standstill. My production has not been this stagnant for over a decade, if not longer. The last six months have been nearly void of writing. Minimal effort put toward any creative endeavors, nearly zero contribution to any of my blogs, and not a single article worth mentioning. The only piece of work I had completed was a Christmas poem for Jill, and that took some serious effort to finish.
You know what the funny thing is? I chose it. I chose to give up. I told myself that I had to stop, and so I did.
Going back to early 2014, I lived in stress every day around my writing. Whether I accomplished a little or a lot, or none at all, I stressed about my work. How much can I do? Does the story make any sense? Where can I find the time? This isn’t enough. It never will be enough! This is the daily life of a writer, at least as I understand it. There was something different about this time, though. I was both eager and anxious about my writing, as usual, but the weight of the world seemed to be collapsing in on me. Pile on work stress, emotional exhaustion, bouts of depression, and a growing sense of general apathy to the anxiety of feeding my creativity and maybe you can understand how I was becoming overwhelmed by my own world.
I had to simplify my life. I had to give up some of what I loved so that madness would not consume me. So, I cut out the need to write from my life, along with a few other obligations, and I began the healing process.
The daily desire to write was out of my system, along with the daily stress of making myself find the time and muster the will to feed that desire. My tension dissipated over the weeks to come, the muscles in my neck and shoulders softening like butter left on a countertop. I’ve always thought of myself as a strong person, but anyone can find themselves overwhelmed from time to time. Cutting out parts of my life wasn’t a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength. I figured out what I needed to do for myself, and I took action.
And so over the past months I’ve made myself stronger. I’ve found better ways to manage the stress in my life, and I’ve learned to set boundaries so that I can focus on certain aspects of my life at the appropriate times and places. I’ve begun layering the responsibilities of my life back together in a more manageable order, and now it is time for writing, too, to rejoin the mold that is me.
I had given up on writing, but it never gave up on me. It was right there waiting for me all along. It knew I would get better in my own time, and that I would find it again.
Glad to be back on track.
