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I am pretty sure that most of y’all have noticed that I have not written not one word since…. My uncle passed on to the hereafter last March.. It is not for that lack of trying. I sit down at my desk in my home office (It WAS the junk room then i had the idea if i had a place that i could just write maybe i would focus better) and take a deep breathe and tell myself I intended to write SOMETHING. I stare on the cursor blinking and blinking until the end of time on the screen in Scrivener that I Purchased in the hopes that would maybe feel like a “real” writer. And yet I have exactly TWO posts up on the blog and a few missed freelance writing deadlines. I stopped the freelance stuff after I realize just how deep my writer’s block seems to be rooted in me.
I was afrid that I would never write again and who woild i be if not a writer? This has been my identy my eniter adulthood. Then i told myself , no I must find a way throughout this never ending grief I find myself in. Since you are reading this, I will assume that you know I got my shit together somewhat on to write something.. It it has NOT been easy. I got my copy of the Artist Way and read through it and started doing morning pages again. At first it was as if my brain and my creativity was all dried up. Slowly as I got outside more and more and discovered just how healing forest bathing, can me the words came back to me. I have to admit that writing in my morning pages was cathartic and allowed me to get out of my head so that ideas could come.
Something else had changed as well.. When I started this blog I had been diagnosed with a severe mental illness and I needed SOMETHING to do so blog it was…At the time I could only muster up book reviews and not much else. If you have been following for a couple years now, you know a lot has changed. I got sick, and it turned out that I had Psoriatic Arthritis and I really did not give a damn about anything. Or to be more specific I was in too much pain to give a damn. People think that arthritis is only pain in your joints but it messes up your whole body. The pain coupled with brain fog and all the rest is brutal.
My health was at rock bottom. I knew I had to make some drastic changes in what I ate and how I treated myself if I wanted to become 100 percent mobile and do stuff I used to love like going on hikes and doing stuff out in nature. Commissioning with nature is super healing. There is a reason forest bathing is gaining in popularity. I live in Central Appalachia so nothing should have been holding me back. With me having to use a cane and it was getting harder t it to get around, I was stuck in the house. It took every single spoon I had to visit and handle a close family member that passed away.
Then my health woes popped up. I know i am not the best at caring for myself but when I found myself sitting in a Cancer Dr office when my iron and liver according to some tests was all fucked up..well i knew i needed to make some changes and take care of whatever turns out to be wrong with me. I am a carrier of the Haemochromatosis mutation but i only inherited 1 copy. Then after a zillion tests it was concluded that i did NOT have cancer or anything else. I have another appt with the liver dr in a couple weeks to find out what is wrong with me. It is the day before thanksgiving and i seriously hope that the news will not ruin the holidays for me.
I started journaling again, and at first it was like pulling teeth. My brain did NOT want to work. This was way worse than the brain fog that comes with an autoimmune disorder. My brain simply shut down and no matter how long i sat at my computer i could not get more than 5 words out to for a half of a coherent sentence.
It was SOMETHING so I kept it up. I felt as long as i dont stop i will build momentum.Journaling became my morning pages and the words started to come bit by bit.
I also started doing workouts with FitOn. It took a while for a workout to feel good but I finally got there. After a while it felt like my brin was coming back online. I could finally think enough to write a full sentence but it was all shitty first drafts so what i wrothen during that time is never gonna see the light of day. The point is I did write something and that is better than nothing. The trainers on FitOn have a saying: do NOT stop going anyway you can and that is the philosophy that I am adopting for this season of my life. I may not be back 100 percent but I am getting there.