Letter to the Reluctant Blogger/Writer – part 4

Dear me

I love to write. I also hate to write. I want to write. I also don’t want to write. This is the life of a writer.

Woooo! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? A few months to be exact. I have been writing, just not on here. And I want to change that. I need to change that. This is my home. This is my space. This is a blueprint of who I am. So, here I am, trying to inhabit my home again. I’m blowing away the dust and sweeping away the cobwebs and making my home in this space again.

I have found that it is extremely hard to inhabit a space that should be home to you when your mind is in a different space. So, this space felt uncomfortable. This space felt like it belonged to the Mable of 2020. The pre- mental illness Mable. The one that coped with the sadness of life and still saw sunshine in every crevice. The pre-depression Mable.

I’m not saying I’m not that person anymore. On some days I see a glimpse of that Mable and I am amazed that she still exists. Although, I feel like a lot of my optimism has been eroded by the streams that life has blown my way. I identify as a cynical optimist, among other things. But it seems like lately, I have been more cynical than optimist.

May 2022, after a whole year of silently going through it, I was diagnosed with depression. It was then that I finally understood the block I had been suffering. I finally understood the discomfort I felt writing for my blog, my space, my home. I was barely at home in my own self. How then could I inhabit a space that belonged to a person I don’t recognize sometimes?

On some days, I feel so tired. I usually say, my tired is tired. And the hope I once held so dear now keeps playing hide and seek. I think this is the most unforgivable part of suffering from depression, it snatches your hope. It plays with your reality and makes you distrust yourself. It makes even the most mundane of activities seem like an uphill task.

I am still going through it. Lord knows I’m still flailing against the tide on most days. But that I’m able to write this is something I’m patting my own back for. I think of everything I’m proud of, I’m proud that I am still here. And I’m proud of this space. Even when I was afraid of it, it was still here, patiently waiting for me to find the strength to come back.

I’ll be back to semi-regular publishing. Thank you for sticking with me. And thank you Mable for still being here, despite everything you’re fighting through.

Love

ME.