Reflection Chapter: A Temporary Drought of Words
I used to write because something inside me needed to get out, and I often still do.
Now I sometimes sit here and wonder what to write, not because nothing is happening, but because life got quieter. The struggles I face are familiar and manageable. They overwhelm me less, and at times, just like lately, I don’t feel inspired to write.
My struggles are not gone, not at all actually. It is just that the sound is not turned up to eleven anymore. The same doubts show up, but I recognize their shape and voice now. Maybe that is why I struggle to write about them. They no longer feel like monsters, just familiar shadows, background noise if you will.
That is why last week I decided to publish a poem instead of a Life Chapter.
I could easily share the short story I wrote about depression and buy myself some more time to think about what I’ll write next.
But when I started this blog, I needed an outlet for my voice, somewhere I could write what I thought with close to no filters. It could be anything, which this blog sometimes is.
I mentioned this before, but this blog sometimes feels more like my personal journal than anything else.
Lately, I have been thinking that another reason I write so often might also be the fact that I am just lonely. That I don’t really have anybody to talk to. Or maybe it isn’t about loneliness, but about the fact that I am still looking for that missing piece, whatever it might be.
Right now, I have one close friend, someone I see on the regular, and I feel disconnected from the rest of the new connections I made. More often than not, I feel disconnected from myself too.
When this happens, I become overwhelmed and insecure.
Questions like: is this me? Did I just do that? Why are people talking to me? Wait a second, am I not too much? Is this person actually listening to me?
This in-between phase is interesting. It is starting to feel like an identity shift.
Writing is an outlet. It was always present, but I never really bothered with it too much until about a year ago. As I said so many times, I suck at writing. I void words entirely when i write, I don’t always know how to structure a sentence, and I suck at spelling.
But I did learn a great deal this past year about writing, mostly because AI is around and I use it as a tool to learn. It helps explain how I could write things differently and where I could improve my writing. Eventually, when life completely stabilizes, I think I want to study again, get a degree, or do some night classes.
But at times, like this past week, I am at a loss for words, not knowing what to write about. So I figured I would write about the fact that sometimes I don’t know what to write, because that is also part of my journey, part of my odyssey.
And maybe there is some comfort in admitting that all of us sometimes run dry.
Dunes in Gran Canaria