End of My Writer’s Block

Writing is my outlet for everything. Bad day? Write it down. Amazing moment? Write it down. My emotions always parallel the ink in a ballpoint pen or come out seamlessly in just minutes at a keyboard. Writing and I have always been on the same page.

Until now.

I’ve been having a lot of trouble writing lately. Everything I write seems to have a halfhearted conclusion — I’ve come to think it has to be because where I am in my life right now, nothing is certain. I think my writing is reflecting that. It is a mirror into my life in every aspect.

I haven’t found myself able to express my emotions in the longest time. The last time I actually sat down and wrote something that seemed close to reflecting the way I felt was months ago and it has only gotten worse since then. Being disconnected from my passion has driven me into a frenzy of nights on end drowning in Netflix binges and staring blankly at my ceiling fan. My life is at a crossroad, change has been suffocating me and when things like this happen I turn to writing, but it just hasn’t been working. Nothing seems to come out. Because of this I feel like I have been taking steps backward instead of forward. My bright and eager self has shrunk into a skeleton of a person and I have found myself cowardly shying away from interacting and embracing my summer ambitions. Nothing has been going the way I thought it would.

I usually write with a conclusion in mind: This is what I’m thinking and this is how I want it to end. That’s how I view my life as well. I know what I want — I’ll get it. But lately, I have come to see that I need not think of the conclusion as the goal but that the entire experience as something to hold onto. I normally find a solution or try to comprehend how I should continue but in my life right now, I see no end outcome. And although that scares the living hell out of me, I think it is a good thing.

I think there’s a reason my writing has not been coming easy to me lately. I have failed to accept that nothing is going the way I had wished it would. I have put that acceptance off to the side. I have procrastinated on taking this new path and running with it. Writing doesn’t need an end point in mind. There is no guideline for how to express what you want through words, or for what needs to be expressed — it simply is a way of communication. Just as in life.

There is no strict plan dictating what will occur in my life. I don’t get to pick the end outcome as much as I want to. Letting the failure of reaching what I thought I wanted stall me from moving forward and living is a waste of my time. I deserve to try again and again. I need to and I should be trying.

I’m 19. I’m a college sophomore. I’m ambitious and bright. I’m caring. I’m optimistic. And I have no idea what’s going on in my life or what’s going to happen and I’m finally accepting that it is okay and that I have time to grow into this person I am becoming.

by Becky Harrison

Originally published at obviweretheladies.com on July 28, 2015.