Back to Basics

Took me years of agony, persistent mental conflict, and a feeling of loss because I was not able to write anything. Writing for me was becoming a part of my identity when the storm started so it was like an identity crisis. I kept reasoning it with a mental block, scarcity of time and then graduated to scarcity of intention but nothing really resonated. Perhaps, I wasn't doing the diagnosis right. All this while I was looking for the root cause of me not being able to write, in all the wrong places. In my head, I was yearning for a perfect space in the physical and psychological realms but I was taken aback when very recently I discovered what that space actually looks like. Let me take you along as I comprehend the reflection of my thoughts in words.

Once upon a time: Let's start with a little history, one fine day around 17 years back I started my writing journey just like this, by writing a blog. The newly discovered fling for blogging developed into a hobby and soon after I developed a relationship with writing. This relationship like other relationships had its share of both good and bad days but its beauty was in my commitment to writing. One day I decided to give this relationship a name and to do that I compiled all the stories to publish a book. At that moment came a point where either the book or the blog could exist so I chose the book and shut the blog which was my safe space, my hideout for more than a decade. Around 5 years back I had to let go of the blog when my first book 'Blue Crayons' saw the light of the day.

Striking a chord: Very recently, just 3-4 days back a friend who knew I used to write blogs reached out asking for suggestions for a good blogging platform, and the same day or the next day she shared her first article on the blog. While I was reading her piece I sensed this strong feeling of missing something very badly, that was once close and at that moment I realized it was my 'Blog' that I was missing. When this realization hit me it opened a mystery box for me. I realized the perfect space I was trying to find or create for being able to write was nothing else but my blog. My blog for more than a decade was my companion, a safe space where I could be myself without any filters. Once that blog was gone that cozy corner of my existence was gone as well. One can argue how I am so sure if this was it, to that, my simple explanation is that I never felt so strongly about any other solution in the last 5 years when I was looking to fix the issue of not being able to write. 

Bigger perspective: Something as basic as a blog was creating havoc for me. Seems like a straightforward thing to face but somewhere it was an important part of my psychological existence. Many times in life to choose amongst the choices, we end up digressing from the basics that operate us but thankfully life has its own unique ways of getting us back on track. I look at other aspects of life I'm facing challenges, and I do realize a deviation from my basics. Deviation doesn't only mean the root cause of the issue but a lot of times how we react and absorb certain things is also dependent on how firmly we are aligned to our basics, the more aligned we are better the chances of us sailing through smoothly.