Beginning Again

Last year, my goal was to resume the habit of  writing. I wrote 365 blog posts in 2019. The quality and depth of writing material is questionable but I did what I set out to do. I kick-started my writing habit. This success was followed by a time of great wordlessness.

Recently, I was asked what I wrote about. I didn't have an answer. I write about nothing in particular. A lot of my energy has been directed towards rabbit sightings and in the moment the question was asked, all I could say was "... ... ... rabbits?".

"What will I write about?" I quietly mused in the aftermath of the unanswered question.

I wrote three pages of long hand writing daily for four months, then in one fell swoop I shredded every last page. I wrote, I destroyed the evidence and let it go. I have yet to pick up the habit again. Sleep trumps writing.

I have not replied to a few Christmas letters I received. I thought I would sit down and write a letter instead of writing morning pages. What I ended up with, was six small pages of "morning pages" in the form of a letter. Rambling, excessive words and details and basically I emptied my thoughts onto the page and there was nothing worth reading. I shredded that too.

Responding to emails has become increasingly tough. The briefest of replies take an extraordinary amount of time and energy.

I feel the creative side of my brain withering up and dying. I feel passionless. I go through the paces of getting through the days in order to reach the weekend. The definition of a perfect weekend is one in which the car never leaves the garage and I get to stay home.

I need to define a purpose behind what I write. I believe delving into Julia Cameron's book "It's Never Too Late to Begin Again" will be the anecdote to my annual case of the winter blues. I just need to motivate myself to immerse myself in the process and I will find my way out of where I'm at.

My goal this year? To come up with a better answer when someone asks "What do you do?" and "What do you write about?" Sounds pretty simple.

Beginning again (and again and again). At what age and stage of life do we stop redefining ourselves?