Tonight.
Tonight, I write, because promised my friend I would start again. I write because I had a long conversation with my sister that’s heavy on my heart. I write, because that’s what I do. Or at least, I used to.
I stopped writing for a long time. I could pretend I was too tired – I could pretend that I got busy, that I couldn’t process or think, that it was too much work. And some days, that was my truth. But when I really think about it – when I really dig deep – I stopped writing because it MADE me feel. It made me experience these big emotions that I did not know what to do with or how to handle. Writing made me dig deep inside this portion of me that just wanted to Shut the F down. It was so much easier to pour a glass of wine (whiskey on the rocks, please!), turn on a television show, and Zone. Out. Shut down, turn off. Not have to think about me – I spend all day thinking about others and helping them through their situations and figure themselves out and know themselves better. And meanwhile, I was going to doctors and doing research and burning out. There was seriously a point that I remember thinking, “I’m so tired of psychoanalyzing myself and exploring and digging deep and processing. I just want TO STOP.”
So that’s exactly what I did. Not purposefully, I don’t think – not really even a consciously. It was more a perfect storm of postpartum depression, anxiety, a newborn with two other littles, work, exhaustion, fatigue, sleep deprivation. It was an “easy out”, so to speak, and I veered steadily in that direction.
But it wasn’t…it wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t an out. Shutting my brain down to emotions and to overwhelming thoughts was not the perfect ending to a beautiful story. Instead, it began to slowly shut me down. It’s reminiscent of the squirrel in “Ice Age” – remember him? Constantly chasing the acorn, not caring the trouble it got him in but persistently going, nonetheless? There’s a scene where he gets excited and spikes the acorn into the ice. It starts a small crack – which grows and spreads and, well, you know the rest… Shutting down an emotion or intense feeling or painful thought is a bit like that. It starts as one act – an isolated moment. But after that moment comes another and another. Eventually your brain has burned a path that makes it an automatic response – yep, you form a pathway that now NATURALLY responds in the same (or similar) manner to the same (or similar) situations and experiences.
Yikes.
Tonight, I’m starting a new pathway. New pathways – new electricities – aren’t easy. They take intention. They take awareness. They take some focus (don’t worry, we’ll go there…). They take repetition. Like any new goal, forming new habits take a lot of supporting factors. But the pathway can be burned, and the habit can change.
People can change, if they want. When the consequences – or the rewards – are big enough, people can make changes, one intention – one step – at a time. But if – and only if – the desire is there.
Tonight, I take my first step.