Dear readers,
My last blog post was published on April 11th.
Then I disappeared. Seventy-two days later, here we are.
I realise disappearing without explanation is generally frowned upon. It’s what ghosts, unreliable exes, and internet providers do. For the record, I am none of the above.
I simply took an unexpectedly long break from blogging.
The thing about being a writer is that people assume you’re always writing. The truth is that sometimes writers need to stop producing and start absorbing. We need to step away from the keyboard and back into life. To observe. To listen. To experience.
Over the past few weeks, I found myself dealing with a mild case of writing burnout. Not the dramatic kind where you swear you’ll never write another word. More the sneaky kind.
The kind where every blog post idea sounds slightly less appealing than reorganising your kitchen drawers.
The creative process is a strange beast. One day, you’re overflowing with ideas. The next day, you’re staring at a blinking cursor as if it personally insulted your family.
For weeks, my brain and I were engaged in intense negotiations.
Me: We should write a blog post.
Brain: Absolutely.
Me: Great. Let’s begin.
Brain: I meant emotionally. Not today.
Stories don’t grow in isolation. They grow in conversations, in unexpected moments, in long walks, in quiet reflection, in laughter, in healing, and in all the ordinary moments that don’t seem important until they become a paragraph six months later.
For the past seventy-two days, I haven’t been absent.
I’ve simply been collecting.
Collecting thoughts.
Collecting stories.
Collecting experiences.
Collecting questions.
Collecting versions of myself that didn’t exist on April 11th.
I also completed another circle around the sun. There was a birthday. There was cake. Correction, there were cakes. There was laughter. There was love. There was bonding. There was also the annual ritual of wondering how I got older while simultaneously feeling about ten. There was gratitude. The kind that sneaks up on you when you’re busy living. The kind that reminds you that a life well-lived will occasionally pull you away from your desk.
I’ve also been collecting unfinished to-do lists, unanswered emails, and enough guilt about not blogging to fuel a small city.
The irony is that while I wasn’t publishing blog posts, I was still very much being a writer. Writers are always working, even when they appear to be doing absolutely nothing. Especially when they appear to be doing absolutely nothing.
What looks like staring out of a window is often research. What looks like daydreaming is usually research. What looks like drinking a fourth cup of chai is definitely research.
Somewhere along the way, I remembered something important.
Creativity isn’t a machine. You can’t keep drawing from the well without putting something back into it. And my well was running a little low.
So, I stepped back.
Not because I had nothing to say. But because I wanted to have something worth saying when I returned.
The good news is that the well is no longer running on fumes. The words have started tapping me on the shoulder again. The ideas are becoming louder than the excuses.
And my blog, which has displayed remarkable patience throughout this extended separation, has graciously agreed to take me back.
So, hello again.
Thank you for waiting. Thank you for not filing a missing person’s report (psssttt: I admit to being disappointed that some of you’ll didn’t!)
I’ve missed this little corner of the internet.
And if the past seventy-two days have taught me anything, it’s that sometimes the most productive thing a writer can do is stop writing for a while and start living. Not forever. Just long enough to remember that words come from somewhere.
They come from conversations.
From quiet moments.
From celebrations.
From unexpected turns.
From one more trip around the sun.
Because eventually, life hands you new stories.
And writers, after all, are collectors. We’re always collecting. For seventy-two days, that’s exactly what I was doing.
And now, finally, I’m back.
