So a buddy of mine says to me the other day, “Why haven’t you updated your blog lately?”
And my response was, “No time. No inspiration.”
To which he said, “Ah, sure. But perhaps you could make to put down some thoughts sometime soon?”
Or, basically: Whatever lady. Get off your butt and do something already.
Which, frankly, pissed me off. And I can say that knowing he’ll read this and will understand my emotion. He’s a writer also and gets the frustration caused by quicksand. And part of my pissyness is because he’s not the first person to call me out on basically ignoring this site for the last six months.
I have to say, there’s been a lot going on. I started a new drug protocol and am processing tremendous frustration with my neurologist. I went back to square 1 with Standing With Buffalo and am changing the POV (plus, you know, there’s the typical self-indulgent self-hatred that the change was necessary in the first place). Some changes at my PT job have taxed my idiot brain more than I can bare to admit. I turned 40. We had this discouraging and spiteful national election and blah blah blah. It all boils down to the fact I just haven’t had anything interesting to say. Not even vaguely interesting.
So after my pal called me out on this a couple days ago I promptly met Husband at the bar and drank entirely too much wine on an empty stomach. I may or may not, depending on your scale of relativity, have made an ass of myself. We didn’t stay out late and I was “asleep” in bed by around 10:00. And when I woke at 1:30 a.m. in a panic that I’d been too drunk to brush my teeth, I was simultaneously overcome with an idea for a really witty and insightful topic for a blog post.
I thought to myself, just think this through for a minute, get your thoughts in order. I spooned up next to Husband and lay there wide awake for probably 20 minutes before I completely sacked out again. When I woke in a 2nd panic at 5:30 a.m. I couldn’t remember a single bit of my earlier supposed brilliance.
But I can grudgingly admit I have to get back on the Blog Horse. Not because I’ve suddenly found a wellspring of meaningful things to write, but because I think it’s just good exercise. I have to flex the brain parts. Part of my issue these past several months has been a sort of mental dropsy, if that makes sense. My co-workers (bless their hearts) deal with it often. I forget simple little things. Things I’ve known and have known how to do for decades…suddenly come up blank. I seem to have a kind of intermittent dyslexia, which is quite inconvenient when I’m entering AR/AP invoices and whatnot. It is entirely not like me to make these kinds of mistakes. Two years ago…unheard of! But this year, in the New Normal, I’m like a walking error.
I’ve mentioned this to Husband. He insists I shouldn’t panic. Says I’m just getting older, as we all are, and being a little forgetful is a part of the process. I submit, I’m not THAT old. And this isn’t like, oops! What’s that phone number again? It’s me staring at the number pad and watching my hand type the right numbers for an invoice, making sure it’s being applied to the correct vendor, hitting “enter,” and finding out two weeks later I did it all completely backwards.
Consequently, I doubt pretty much everything about my capabilities. Which means I’ve spent 6 months changing the POV on 7 chapters (of the 15 I have thus far) in Standing With Buffalo, but not putting much new in the manuscript. And puking my thoughts out here seems like energy I could spend moving forward with SWB. But I guess I need the exercise. Avoiding it isn’t helping. It’s just giving me more doubt. So, back in the saddle again.
Grumblegrumblegrumble.