I’ve neglected my blog, which is really to say I’ve neglected writing for the sake of writing. I miss it. I used to be good at it – though really I’m talking before blogging existed, when the only way to communicate with the world was to write long missives by email and cc- in a bunch of folks you knew… Folks who, then, were actually quite likely to take the time to read it. (Can you imagine?) At that time the closest thing to social media was MySpace, the new frontier, where one’s typed thoughts could reach a wider public via personalised home page, accompanied by a theme song.
To say they were simpler times is to sound like I’m 102… Though I am forty, which, given the speed the digital age moves, might as well be the same thing.
These days the only personal communications out in the world are via Instagram: pictures + little captions. Which means there’s a lot I do not say and many writing muscles that lie dormant. I miss feeling them stretch.
Well… This is where I’m supposed to announce that I’m setting new goals and holding myself accountable to keeping this blog updated on the regular. Yeah… I’m not doing that. I can try but I cannot commit to myself. So I promise nothing. But I woke up this morning feeling frustrated that I’ve lost the thing I used to have, the agility for putting down words because the words were there just beneath my skin, and not because it’s my job. (Which is valuable and joyous but a different kind of expression, telling stories for someone else; writing to keep the wolf from the door, to cover the expenses of being alive.)
And I figured if I didn’t overthink this, and simply posted the words that fell out of my fingers over the first coffee of the morning, I can bust through the cobwebs of my expressive conscious and maybe… maybe… come back to my writing self again? This rambling missive is as awkward and earnest as a Myspace post circa 2005, but in a way, that’s the point. I’m writing it for me. I’m stretching some neglected muscles. If progress comes from this, I’ll be delighted. Whatever comes of it, a stretch is always a good place to begin.