4.11.23 I haven’t written anything in a long time and I haven’t cared. Let me clarify. I missed writing but I didn’t beat myself up for not writing.
That was, until today. Today, I started to feel a little ashamed.
Which means, it’s time to get back on track with my writing.
Woah, just admitting that sent chills down my spine.
It’s time to write again.
4.19. 23 I wrote the above section March 11th, 8 days ago as of this section.
In those 8 days, I have written, just not in the way I was expecting.
On one hand, I’m happy I am writing again. But on the other, I am not writing in the way my shame was expecting of me.
I haven’t written any posts. In fact, I haven’t even looked at the list of posts I had scheduled while I ghosted myself. I have a post I wrote but wasn’t excited about. I have two people expecting it.
But when I ghosted myself, I ghosted them too and that’s the one weakness I hate about myself.
I need to face it. I just don’t know if I want to write a new piece or not. I don’t think I can move forward until I resolve that. But I definitely don’t have the spoons till probably after the service scout campout this weekend.
Ironically, I have made more progress on my second book in the past 8 days than I have since the title came to me way back in Sept 2022.
I ghosted myself because I spent pretty much all of February, sick.
I lost all the motivation I had gained since the end of November 2022. I lost all the drive I had built. And I lost the spark that had been sustaining my inspiration, creativity, and passion.
I didn’t give up on writing in my Vibe Time journal, or posting a photo of the day. Although, posting a photo a day was a tad harder and I almost stopped. I started overthinking and second guessing why the heck I was even posting a photo every single day, or rather, most days, when I am not getting any traction.
But. I still ghosted myself.
When that shame started creepin’ up though, it had only been 2 months.
Last year, I spent 6 months in a much more debilitating fog, completely checked out from reality.
I may have ghosted myself, but I am also damn proud of myself.
I am doing all the things. I am balancing all the things.
Even though this return from the ghosted looks nothing like I expected, I am back.
4.26.23 I may have returned from the land of the ghosted, but I have just been spinning my wheels.
Doing all the things but none of the them productive or moving me forward.
Part of the problem is that I don’t know, or maybe I don’t have clarity on what moving forward looks like.
Don’t get me wrong. I have been working on and finishing projects that I am passionate about. But they are all unpaid. And I need money. I have bills that are piling up.
So, what does moving forward look like? Do I continue and double down on my contract job and double down? Or do I find a company to hire me on?
Do I stick with the contract job doing a for sure thing I love, while writing my book on the side? Or do I write my second book and my contract job on the side?
What do I need to scale back on? What can I scale back on without risking my non-negotiables? What can I let go of that won’t affect my balance?
Part of ghosting myself arose because I shut down the idea of running my own business and tied up all my loose ends, with only a thought of the next step.
But I can’t seem to get out of my own way.
I pulled the Laguz (flow, water) rune this evening with an intention of questioning what I am missing.
Reading Laguz in relation to my intention, I am not listening to my intuition or going with the flow. Something is holding me back. That much is obvious. And it’s me. I am stifling myself and returning to old behaviors, taking the easy road of self-sabatoge.
My co-star app day at a glance built upon Laguz, reminding me today that “what [I] have to give needs to be shared with the world.”
I haven’t stopped sharing my photos. But I have stopped sharing my words, my stories, my perspective, my insights.
And today, that changes.
I don’t know why I am having such anxiety at the mere thought of publishing this. And maybe I don’t need to know why. Maybe I just need to do.
Water in the right quantities and circumstances cannot be controlled.
Wait! Epiphany! When I started planning what stories to post weeks in advance, and then built the outline for said story… I stuck with that process for awhile.
I wanted more consistency. But what I got instead, was routine.
And writing, for me, isn’t routine. Writing, for me, is one word and then the next, rarely knowing where the words are going to go. Much like water.
When I let the words flow rather than control where they are headed, I am in my element.
Don’t get me wrong, planning stories for a bit helped me break out of the 6-month fog I was stuck in last year.
But, now that I have broken out, maybe it’s time to ditch the planned words, break the cup, and let the water flow.
Huh. Food for thought.
In the meantime, Adventure on with Curioisty,
~ K. Steele
