Getting Back on the Horse

 

In the last year, and especially the last six months, I’ve drifted away from regular writing. And I miss it: fiction and blogging and just scribbling down thoughts in a journal.

Part of this is a feeling that I’m out of my depth. Blogging in general these days has skewed from what-I’m-up-to to Categorized Important Topics. In the days when I first started blogging, there were a lot more people just posting statuses and images and a few opinions, mostly for family and friends. These days, that sort of content has shifted to Facebook and other social media platforms.

So maybe this is redundant. Since (despite efforts toward the end of my last substantial blogging spurt) I am not a profound or intelligent or particularly inciteful-on-a-special-subject sort of writer, it may be that my little essays belong in those walled gardens. But there’s something to be said for shouting into the abyss, if only as a means of collecting one’s own thoughts for the purpose of shouting, even without the expectation of response.

Maybe this time, I’ll just be honest, not shaping my posts to an audience, not trying to hide bits of pieces of who and what I am: a 40 year old perpetually single slightly nerdy Catholic woman with too many hobbies, far too many pens and pencils and notebooks, and several peculiar cat-dog-things roaming around. Once upon a time I was sure sooner or later I would be a slightly nerdy Catholic wife with a slightly nerdy Catholic husband and potentially very nerdy Catholic kids, genetics being what they are, but this was apparently not meant to be.

I do have assorted amazing nieces and nephews, nerdy and not, and people I can serve. I have days when I am content to live in the moment and accept what comes, not fretting about the past or sighing about the future. I also have days when I don’t understand how I arrived at my current state.

I have days when I am caught up in my music or my messing around with art objects or my cats. I have days when they feel like selfish indulgences and I feel guilty about them.

I have days when, despite life not turning out the way I expected, I rejoice at how blessed I am, and I feel like I am right where and how I am meant to be.

I have days, especially since turning 40 in October, when a part of me is afraid I only believe because I’m terrified my life will lose any meaning if there isn’t more to it than worldly success and achievements. I’m halfway through the game of life, and there are days when it feels as though I’ve already lost and now I’m just pointlessly pushing pieces around, an endless stalemate.

I’m sure I’m not the only one in my position. It just feels that way at times.

In any case, I guess I may as well start writing about it. I’ll keep me out of trouble for a few minutes at a time, right?