One Small Step

Hello again.  It's been awhile. 

For the past eight years or so I have considered myself a writer, mostly due to starting this blog in 2010.  That was spurred on by the purchase of Chloe the MacBook (which, I'm happy to report, I am using for this very post--although she is much slower than she used to be, but just as pretty!), as well as my friend Nicky creating her own blog based on Project 365, in which she posted a photo each day for a year.  

But I haven't written much since 2012 unless I was feeling deep sadness or uncertainty, and even then, I probably only put pen to paper, on the pages of a diary I keep in my bedside table, when I felt strong enough to resist the urge of distracting myself from introspection--which, in the past six years, has been a rarity.  I have become so much more eager to refresh Instagram or play a game on my phone than to sit down and think in earnest.  I have become so much more eager to escape into the stories of fictional characters than to create (or live) my own.

Sometimes I avoid writing because I am scared of where my thoughts will take me.  Because when you aren't feeling like your best possible self, it doesn't take much time to descend into an underworld of comparison, jealousy, or resentment.  And once you're down there, all the other dark shadows of past mistakes can easily haunt you too.  It is much easier to fool yourself into feeling rewarded by the sight of a notification.

But mostly I avoid writing because it is much easier to do nothing than to do something.  And lately, I am tired of doing nothing.  I want to remove the burden of literary idleness that I have been waking up with every morning, which tugs at my covers in bed when I am about to fall asleep, and feel the lightness that comes with being whole again--being whole because I know I am listening to that inner voice once more, and being whole because I am expressing it.

So here it goes, for what feels like the umpteenth time.  I will write daily, even if it is just for five minutes.  Because another thing I have recently been reminded of is that the little steps matter, and rather than continue to stand still and be numb, I think it's time I chose to explore and be in awe of what it means to be alive.