It’s been months since I’ve written anything. Not for lack of things to say – God knows I have plenty of thoughts rattling around in my head at any given moment. And not for lack of time, because let’s be honest, I’ve spent plenty of hours scrolling through Instagram instead of opening my laptop.
No, it’s something else entirely. Something I’m just now starting to understand as I sit here, finally typing these words.
I keep opening a new document, staring at that blinking cursor, and then… nothing. It’s like my brain just shuts off. I’ll have a perfectly good idea for a post – something about the kids, or a random observation about life, or one of my many recent mishaps (and trust me, there have been plenty). But the moment I sit down to write, it’s gone. Poof. Like it was never there to begin with.
My friend asked me last week why I haven’t been writing, and I gave her some vague answer about being busy. Which isn’t entirely untrue – life has been life, you know? But the real answer is more complicated than that.
I think I’ve been stuck in my own head, overthinking every potential sentence before it even makes it to the page. What if it’s not interesting enough? What if I sound whiny? What if I’m just repeating myself from that post I wrote six months ago? What if no one cares?
And there’s the rub. Somewhere along the way, I started writing for an imaginary audience instead of writing for me. Instead of just processing my thoughts and experiences the way I used to, I began censoring myself before the words even formed. It’s like having a really harsh editor sitting on my shoulder, shooting down ideas before they have a chance to breathe.
I realized this morning, as I was avoiding opening my laptop yet again, that I’ve been waiting for the perfect idea. The perfect moment. The perfect words. But here’s what I’m slowly learning (at the ripe old age of 44): perfect is the enemy of done. And done is the enemy of never starting at all.
Because that’s what I’ve been doing – never starting. I’ve been so afraid of writing something mediocre that I’ve written nothing at all. Which, let’s face it, is way worse than mediocre. It’s just… absent.
So here I am, writing about not being able to write. Meta, right? But maybe that’s exactly what I needed to do. Maybe I needed to acknowledge the standoff between me and the blank page, call it what it is, and just… start typing.
I read somewhere recently that the difference between writers and non-writers isn’t talent or even ideas. It’s the willingness to write badly. To put imperfect words on the page and trust that they can be fixed later. To choose “good enough for now” over “perfect someday.”
And you know what? This post isn’t perfect. It’s probably not even very good. But it exists, which is more than I can say for all those perfectly crafted posts that have been living only in my head these past few months.
Maybe the trick isn’t waiting for inspiration to strike. Maybe it’s showing up anyway, sitting with the discomfort of not knowing what to say, and trusting that the words will come. Even if they’re the wrong words. Even if they’re messy and imperfect and not nearly as profound as I think they should be.
I keep thinking about something my mother used to say (or at least, something I think she would have said if I had known her longer): “Progress, not perfection.”
This is progress. Imperfect, rambling, probably-too-honest progress. But progress nonetheless.
And maybe that’s enough to get me started again.