Change Never Comes Without Loss

I haven’t posted in four months… that’s maybe the longest I’ve ever been silent since I first started. Doesn’t feel great. But, I understand why.

There’s been a lot of change in the past year. Just as I’d finally begun settling into Nashville, a world without my mom, and a career path I had so much hope for, BAM. The world came to a screeching halt. And then everything changed again. And I don’t like change. I don’t think that’s unique to me, either!

Change requires decision making (my least favorite). Change also requires, in its essence, loss. Always. In the process of living a different life or becoming a different person, we first have to lose old trappings, habits, thoughts, beliefs, etc.

It doesn’t matter whether or not we actually wanted that change to happen in the first place.

And I think my breakup in December put me over the edge. I’d done okay changing homes, cities, careers. But that final change tipped my scales, and it was a hard resetting process. I’d joked to him that nothing in my life had been going right except for him, and… well…

Add on top of that another new job, and it’s been nothing but change over here! But I’m finally getting comfy again, and every day I find reasons to be grateful for all this upheaval.

To keep some normalcy while I wasn’t feeling so appreciative, I clung to my writing. This idea of a book has been one of my only constants these last five years, after all.

And then… writing started going poorly. The sitting-on-the-basement-floor-surrounded-by-stacks-of-printed-pages-and-scrapping-it-all level of bad.

It’s difficult for the goal-oriented, perfectionist, over-achiever part of me to have grace for the fact that I assigned myself a ridiculously hard task. That part of me thinks wow you haven’t written at all this week, you’ve been stuck at the same spot for over a month now, you’re so lazy, and on, and on, and on. Then the logical, human part of me has to remember that I’m trying to make something beautiful for the world, out of the worst possible moments of my life. I’m purposefully diving right back in to the scenes and words that still hurt like a bitch. And when the emotional work has beaten me down and I feel like quitting, that’s a pretty fuckin strong argument for it.

So yeah. That’s why I haven’t posted. I’ve been processing all the change and the challenges.

I’ve even written posts! But my strength has only held up right until it came time to hit publish. It gave out when I realized I was about to put myself and my writing out there for y’all to see where I’ve been at mentally. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I am so worried about what people will think, because this time last year I was on the up and up. And in comparison, it now feels like I’ve been stuck on square one for a good long while now.

I think I’m ready to push those fears aside… we’ll see. I want to publish those posts in the coming days, just to get them up and over with.

As always, thank you for reading. Half the time I’m not sure why I do this, but if it means something to you, I will continue