Finding myself lost once again

Well, here I am again. I’m lost. 

Maybe it’s just the human condition or maybe it’s something only I tend to do. I get lost pretty easily. I seem to lose my way no matter how on track I think I am. That’s how I’ve felt with my writing for I don’t even know how long now. I’ve felt lost. I’ve felt a strong aversion to something that I once loved to do. I have always loved to write. That’s why I started this blog in the first place. Because writing is something I naturally enjoy. 

But I made it into a chore for myself. I took the advice of pretty much every blogger out there, and I treated it like a business. I made myself write even if I didn’t feel like it. I made myself write when I had zero inspiration to do so. I found myself bullshitting my way through it, which is probably what most bloggers end up doing at a certain point. So because my heart wasn’t in it, my articles began to lose their depth. Instead of writing from my heart I began writing about meaningless things just so I could meet the deadline I’d put on myself.

And after doing that for a while I got lost. I lost myself in the meaningless topics. I guess I’m just not someone who can run a blog that way. I guess I can’t bullshit my way through it like so many people seem to be able to do. It’s not authentic for me. If my soul isn’t in my writing, my writing is dead. It’s lifeless and meaningless. 

I think another big reason I was having trouble was the fact that a lot of my writing depended on my experiences with mental health. Specifically it depended on my bad experiences. That’s where a lot of my authenticity kicks in, when I’m writing about the gut wrenching awfulness of my own mental health when it’s not doing so good.

I started having trouble writing about my mental health because it actually started doing pretty good recently. I started on a medication that has really turned things around for me. Instead of swinging wildly back and forth between suicidal ideation and massive amounts of anxiety I’ve been feeling reasonably stable. So there was no gut wrenching emotions to write about. For the first time in a long time, I was having more good days than bad. The downside of that being that I was sorely lacking in inspiration to write. 

It got to the point that I couldn’t even look at my computer without being hit with an overwhelming feeling of failure. I had a complete lack of drive, and something that once filled me with pride now filled me with dread. My writing is the first thing in my life that I’ve been genuinely proud of. It’s something my mom is proud of me for, which is a big deal to me, and it’s something that I feel like I can actually use in the real world. I don’t really have talents or skills otherwise. Anything I try to learn I usually give up on. Writing is the only thing I have a natural talent for. So when the only thing I felt I was good at began to turn into a dreaded chore, I started to be hit with the ever so familiar feeling of being totally lost. 

Being lost in life is probably something most people feel at one point or another. Maybe my experience isn’t as unique as I think. But when I look at everyone else, nobody seems lost to me. Everybody looks like they’ve got it all figured out. They seem to be moving effortlessly along, as if they have some sort of road map that I never got. Those people probably all feel lost in their own way, but from where I’m standing it doesn’t ever look that way. Maybe I look like I have it all together when people look at me. Who knows. All I know is that every time I think I’ve figured out my trajectory in life, sooner or later I lose whatever map I found and I end up lost all over again. 

But you know what? That’s okay. Maybe there’s not supposed to be maps in life. Or maybe I’m just not meant to have a map. I don’t know. I’m tired of caring so much about what my future holds. I’m tired of comparing myself to everyone else and feeling like a failure. I have plenty of reasons to be grateful and content in my life right now. My mental health is doing better than it ever has, I have a roof over my head and food on my table, I have someone I love who loves me back, and I have a whole bunch of animals who make me smile every day. So what if blogging isn’t what I thought it would be? So what if I can’t push out bullshit articles just to fill a monthly quota? Even if I write one article a month, if that article is genuine and authentic, that’s the only thing that matters to me. And you guys deserve the real thing. You deserve to read something that comes from my heart. 

And since writing about my mental health isn’t the easiest thing in the world for me right now, maybe I’ll write about some other stuff in my life. Like the ketogenic diet I follow, and how it’s helped me both physically and mentally. Or about how my boyfriend is going to be gone for six months next year hiking the Appalachian Trail and I’ll be living alone for the first time in my life. That’s a big topic for me right now. I’m definitely more than a little freaked out by it. But I’ll save all that for a future article. 

Please bear with me while I try my damndest to get myself back into writing. I’ve probably apologized for this already, but I’d like to say I’m sorry again for leaving my readers hanging all this time. I can’t do it if I can’t be authentic about it. Being inauthentic just isn’t me. I’m trying to find a way to do this in a way that my readers can always walk away feeling recharged and understood. That’s the whole reason I want to write in the first place. I want you, the reader, to feel stronger and more capable after reading my articles. I want you to feel like you’re not alone in whatever you’re facing. Because you’re not. I’m stumbling through life with a blindfold on just like you. It’s a little easier if we can hold someone’s hand rather than going it alone, don’t you think?

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. Look forward to hopefully more from me soon.

Until Next Time,
Keep Calm and Grow On