Terminating Radio Silence

Wow.  It’s been a little while since I’ve posted here.  I wish I could tell you exactly what was up, but I can’t.  I seem to have gotten a little stuck.  And then like a car spinning its wheels in the mud, trying so hard to get unstuck, I got even more stuck.

So here’s what I think happened. Maybe you can relate.

There was a bunch of stuff happening all in one week way back in April.  A workshop.  Some heavy duty dental work.  Then my mom came to town for several days.

So I missed my self-imposed blog date.

And then I was picking up the pieces of the crazy week, so I missed another blog date.

By then I was feeling so crummy about the whole thing, that just seeing ‘write blog post’ on my list made me want to hide under the covers.  And of course there’s always lots of other stuff to keep me busy- though at this moment I can’t tell you exactly what it was.  But it seemed plenty important at the time.

And ‘write blog post’ was still on my list.

I had a love-hate relationship with my laptop for a while there.

I’d read other people’s blogs but not want to comment because my last post was over a week ago two weeks ago and how lame is that?

For a few days I didn’t even want to see my inbox or God-forbid my Google reader because there were all these other people who were not having the same problem and were still writing.  Daily even.

The monsters in my head were definitely getting loud then.

There was the: Look- all-those-other-people-are-doing-it-what’s-wrong-with-you-you-don’t-have-to-be-Shakespere-just-write-something-already-monster.

Tag-teaming with the: All-those-other-people-have-said-every-interesting-relevant-or-entertaining-thing-there-is-to-say-so-there’s-really-no-point-in-you-posting-anything- monster.

Between the two of them, all the words I have (and usually I have plenty!) were stuck.

Fortunately about that time, the Monster Coloring Book showed up.

I wish I could tell you I had some brilliant epiphanies about why I was stuck and had a fabulous conversation with the monsters that magically erased all the stuck about writing and getting something posted.

That’s not exactly what happened because these monsters weren’t really up for much conversation.  I did my best to ask if they had anything they wanted to say and got a lot of hrmmph-ing in return.

It was a lot like those fights where one person says to the other, “Well if you don’t know what you did wrong, I’m certainly not going to tell you.”

Not so helpful.

Fortunately there’s a chapter on how to deal with the silent monster.

We left things with me saying to them, “If you ever do feel like talking to me in a way that I can hear you, I’d be willing to listen.”

“Hrmmph”  was the reply.

But something did soften just a bit, because I was at least able to go back to a post I’d begun and take a look at it.  It wasn’t as horrific as I’d remembered, so I figured that was progress.

But that was still a while ago.  I like to think that if last week hadn’t been deadline week for my newspaper gig, I’d have gotten a post up last week.  But it was and I didn’t.   I did at least have the good sense to take ‘write blog post’ off the list of things to do for a week.

But here it is Monday- a new week and a fresh start.

“Write blog post” is back on the list.  And now it’s checked off!

At some point, I’ll go back and check in with those monsters and see if they have anything useful to say.

In the meantime how about you?

Got anything on your list of ‘things to do’ that’s making you feel crummy?  What would happen if you took it off, even temporarily?

What monsters are keeping you stuck right now?

Please share in the comments!