To Poo and Back Again

A few days ago, I started writing a blog post about why I haven’t written any blog posts for a while, and now I can’t find it.  It’s taken a lot of resolve to stop looking for it and start again.

It began with me explaining how, every so often, I decide that I need a Real Job and I kick around the idea of getting my Realtor’s license.  And then some kind of divine intervention occurs and I end up with a writing gig or in a writing workshop or basically doing something that has everything to do words and ideas and nothing to do with houses and closing costs.  As if the universe is trying to tell me something.

I would actually make a good Realtor in some ways, because I really like showing people around and telling them nifty little things they might not know.  About a house, or a neighborhood, or a town.  It would also give me the opportunity to wear some of the cute outfits my Dresser put together for me last year when I broke down last year and paid someone to help me figure out what to wear.

But instead, I’m in ratty jeans, sitting in front of a computer screen that I’m absolutely certain is the cause of my failing eyesight.   This is because I’m six weeks into a writing class.

I come to writing classes in perhaps the most arrogant way.  I must need to conjure up a certain amount of egotistical overconfidence just to get myself to sign up.  Because, writing workshops are kind of scary.  At least they are for me.  You’re basically paying someone a chunk of money to allow you to sit in a circle and have 10 people tell you why your essays don’t work.

So, all puffed up and full of myself, I walk into a room of other writers, fairly certain that I will be the most competent of the group.  I soon discover, quickly and incontrovertibly, that I suck. 

Ok, maybe that’s too harsh. Let’s just say, it dawns on me that not only am I not the best in the room, I may possibly be the worst. 

As you might expect, this is not an ideal mindset for churning out blog posts.

This exact process has transpired so many times in precisely the same way that I feel like I should know by now to just walk in humble in the first place.  But my brain is a rat bastard sometimes and it won’t let me just decide to be humble. It requires experiential proof.

I’m not sure if it’s like this for everyone, but I find Being Humbled very liberating, but absolutely exhausting. And not for just an hour or two; I’m kind of wrung out for a long time. 

It also makes me really hungry.

So between spending the last many weeks writing, reading other people’s submissions, commenting on those submissions, overeating and generally feeling like poo, you can see how blogging might get shelved for a little while.

I think I’m back now, though.  Thanks for being patient.