I’ve done 50 days of consistently writing after a period of not writing. At first, it was hard to get myself into the groove… I imagine the last years had me moving between grooves. This feels like a different groove.

Why did I slow down?

Maybe I just needed a break. Maybe I needed time to process a lot of what I had been perceiving and post-processing half a century’s worth of life with the lenses I picked up along that time. Maybe I was just being lazy. Maybe I was depressed. Maybe disengaged. Maybe I was busy taking care of my overall health. Maybe I was too ‘busy’ interacting with other’s social media.

Maybe I was just tired of writing about the same things over and over and over and over and over…you should get the point now… again.

It’s probably all of them and more I can’t think of, but I’m leaning heavily on the last ‘Maybe’.

One of the key problems I had was that you can only write things so many times. It’s like throwing spitballs at a wall, trying to hit a gnat that has just had it’s fix of methamphetamine, trying to find a way to get through to people who… may not even be paying attention.

There’s just so many pornography sites these days, and if people aren’t here reading what I write, they must be watching pornography! Wait, what are you doing here anyway? 🙂

I’ll tell you what I think part of it was.

Healthwise, I did have that surgery, which was an experience I’d rather not repeat. The most uncomfortable moment not being a fear of having someone cut holes in me and fiddle in my insides, but suddenly being naked in front of people in gowns and rubber gloves on a very cold table in a very cold. It is not flattering for a guy, particularly in front of a cute Cuban nurse. That, to me, was the worst part of it. She was surprised at how quickly I got dressed and left afterward.

I was surrounded in a cold room with masked people ready to use sharp objects on me to explore my insides, and I was worried about being naked in front of one person. An audience I knew probably wouldn’t judge me because I had been in similar shoes before. An audience like me, an inner critic of who I am.

Maybe in recovering from the surgery I also needed to face that fear – my thought is that we should face our fears. This does not mean that I will just strip in front of people dressed like medical professionals, so don’t get any ideas – but I had to be comfortable with being uncomfortable to grow.

That’s how we grow, after all, and I hadn’t truly grown in a while. Maybe what I was writing felt boring because I myself needed to grow a bit.

Write, Grow, Laugh. Repeat as necessary.

And if you’re that Cuban nurse, please remember that was a very cold room.