Boy, have I left this barren.
It’s interesting. In my teens and 20s, I thought of myself as a writer. And when I read or listened to professional writers speak, they often talked about this idea that they became writers because they couldn’t NOT write. I thought I had that same need. It carried me through high school and college, through essays and theses and newspaper articles. It carried me through grad school, when I started the website that evolved into this blog and wrote my dissertation.
And somewhere along the way, it faded.
I still like putting words together, but for a long time putting together a decent joke or anecdote on social media has been enough to scratch that itch. About a year and a half ago I was talking to a colleague, who’s an artist along with a teacher. I urged him to keep drawing, because that’s where his heart was, the thing he really loved. And I realized that for me, writing wasn’t that thing anymore.
Teaching kids, and being part of a school community, is that thing. I’m not me if I’m not in a classroom. Or at least thinking about being in a classroom.
And for the past two years I have been doing so much of that, that the energy to put something else together has just kind of fizzled.
With the summer here I am kinda doing the New Year’s Resolution thing and trying to get into shape, mentally and physically, so I’m better at all of the things I need to do. Daily writing and reflecting is a mental muscle that I think I want to spend more time working on. Facebook probably isn’t the place to do it for a host of reasons. So let’s see if I can get back into the saddle.