A few weeks ago, I started writing again.
I suppose you can't say that I ever stopped writing. My day-job is writing, and every day I sit in my office and put words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into pages.
But nothing personal for a very long time.
That's why, a few months ago, I signed up for a writing workshop. I clicked register, wrote a check and committed to bring 15 pages of writing for five strangers to read.
I was utterly terrified.
I didn't have 15 pages of writing. Heck, I didn't have five pages of writing. I had a few scribbled ideas, but nothing of substance.
The week after I signed up for the writing workshop, I sat down at my new desk in my new home. My new husband gave me a kiss on the cheek and I told him I'd see him in an hour. And for the next 60 minutes, I stared at a blank screen. I literally typed nothing. I stumbled out of the room and when he asked how it went, I shrugged. I couldn't admit that I had nothing.
This went on for a few weeks. Shut myself in my office, set a timer for 60 minutes, write nothing, shuffle back out into the living room. It was a disaster.
It took me about a month to identify the two things keeping me from writing.
First, I believed I was broken. That I couldn't write anymore. After 8 hours at work, I often felt like a failure. And I couldn't switch from bad writer to good.
And the second thing was that all of my brilliant sticky-noted ideas weren't what I needed to write about. I needed to write about all of the things on my heart. Literally. I needed to write about the broken heart that had healed. The healed heart that found love. And the love that was waiting just outside that closed door.
Three weeks before the writing workshop I started getting up at 5:15 a.m. My husband would lure me out of bed with a steaming cup of coffee and I would join him on the couch. While he read and did his Bible study, I finally began to write.
At 5:15 in the morning I wasn't a broken writer yet. I was just a tired one. And once I gave in to writing about love, love took over.
So this is the next step in that journey. A shiny new blog in which I will write about love in all its forms. Love lost and love found. A heart wounded and one renewed. A clumsy heart falling and searching and healing.
I'm glad you're on the journey with me!