I haven’t written much since February. That wasn’t my intention. In fact, as a person who enjoys writing rom com February should have been my time to shine. I had planned to kick off a whole host of fun, creative things, giving you all more to read and more heart-felt ridiculousness for me to make up!
But these three things happened within a month: our cat died, our oldest daughter went into the hospital, and my grandma died. I would top that all off with “half my students came back into the classroom and I had to teach hybrid again” but considering those three big things, I kind of forgot about the stress at work. My daughter is okay, by the way, but it was a little scary there for a while.
In the midst of all this I apparently had a breakdown post about the Super Straight flag? I mean, I see it. But still, Claire’s illness had been getting worse since November, the cat was nineteen and having some health issues, and my grandma was 98 and had begun telling us that she was ready to die. I held it in, I held it together. And then I saw the Super Straight flag and lost my shit.
I kept trying to write and I kept going quiet inside. I don’t know how else to describe it. Fingers on the keyboard, I would stare at the screen and feel none of the playfulness that I usually feel when I write. I tried music, I tried writing exercises, I tried working with other writers. Occasionally those things worked. But mostly I felt like an engine that wouldn’t turn over.
About a week ago, I read a great article by Sarah Ruhl in Poets & Writers magazine called “Not Writing Right Now: Writer’s Block During a Pandemic,” which you can find here. Ruhl talks about how some of us have been so stressed out in this last year that we’ve literally been at a loss for words. I can’t remember if she mentions this in the piece, but I have often observed over the years that nothing is more frustrating to me than being a writer who sometimes can’t think of how to write something. Ruhl explores that frustration and among the various suggestions she offers to gently steer worry warts like myself back to the page, she recommends resting.
Resting, madam? Stopping? Are you serious? Even without my loved ones suffering I still have to steer this ship of high school students to an elusive shore called THE END OF THE 2020-2021 SCHOOL YEAR. I’ve heard it exists and I really want to get us there.
However, it has become obvious that if I don’t take some time to relax and grieve (can a person do those two things at the same time?) I might have a stroke. So I’m taking my time. I have been writing but not sharing it because it’s highly personal, which means it’s bad. Awful. Sad. And relieving.
If you’re a writer who puts a lot of pressure on yourself to crank out a certain amount of words per day or you feel like a total failure, I feel your pain. It’s okay to stop sometimes. Sometimes writing can’t be forced. I mean, okay, most of the time you can break through the block by just sitting in a chair and writing long enough. But sometimes you’re teaching high school in the middle of a pandemic, and your kid is sick, and your grandmother and your cat are dead. When those things are true, it’s okay to relax.
I’ve watched writers go through a lot of terrible things and their voices eventually come back. Claire is better. Grandma would want me to keep writing. So would my cat.