The Write Frame of Mind

It’s possible to feel stuck even when your ideas are bursting at the seams of your brain.

I have struggled to write these past few months. It’s as if my brain and the words that want to come out are no longer in sync, stifled by exhaustion.

As long as I can remember, my words have bubbled insistently beneath the surface, pouring out of me like a tidal wave. I didn’t think it would be possible for my words to run dry, to be sucked out of me like nectar from a hummingbird greedily sticking its beak into a flower.

I have ninety-nine ideas, but a story ain’t one.

Each half-formed thread of thought spirals into nothingness, rolling around the blank canvas of a word processor until it disappears. My drafts folder resembles a child’s playroom, as it is a list of nonsense that collectively creates chaos.

So what else is there to do but write about not being able to write?

I know I’m not alone in this. My dear friend

Preeti Ramachandran

has been open on social media about how she is also struggling with writer’s block. This beautiful and vulnerable piece by the lovely

Sally Prag

is also a testament to how we’re just…not okay sometimes, and that’s okay.

Honestly, these last few months I have felt like I’ve been holding my breath.

Life hit me like a colossal tidal wave, bringing in huge milestones and changes. I got engaged, bought my own place, moved out. All things to celebrate of course, but each change brought its own challenges. I had to recalibrate my life, press a reset button, and learn to live with each cataclysmic shift.

Needless to say, that reprogramming takes a lot of brain capacity. That must be how my words got lost in a void.

I haven’t been in the “write” frame of mind in a long time. Some people call it the zone, when the words escape from my fingertips like laser beams, when my heart races with joy and hours pass by as I write.

I don’t exactly know why that is. Perhaps I have been stewing in a cocktail of celebration and stress for so long that this state of silence on Medium feels like normalcy. It allowed me to drift away and zone out on my phone for hours, mindlessly scrolling through TikTok videos of people and their dogs.

I also had to go back to the office three days a week after working from home for two years, and boy, do I feel that exhaustion in my bones. I love my day job and my coworkers, but commuting is so tough. I don’t know how I did this for so long before the pandemic without spontaneously combusting.

Another thing that’s been on my mind? Money.

I have a mortgage now and a wedding to plan and I don’t know how I’ll pay for it all. Medium certainly doesn’t pay my bills, so I’ve been on this platform less and less. I know the value of this community extends far beyond a paycheque, but it was something I had to consider in balancing the many things I suddenly had on my plate. I also live in one of the most expensive cities in Canada, so that certainly doesn’t help.

It took several months being away and my words are just starting to return. The insistent chatter in my brain is getting hard to ignore now, each idea a thread that is begging to be pulled and released onto a page somewhere. I find myself jotting each idea down so it doesn’t disappear into a spiral abyss of exhaustion. I’m reminding myself of how beautiful my words can be and the happiness they bring me.

Maybe I’m “write” where I need to be.

More life musings from me:

I Choose to Surround Myself With Love

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