Hello, Internet. Bet you thought this site had wound up in the wasteland of blogs started with good intentions, but were inevitably abandoned by Netflix-distracted authors that has claimed too many digital diaries—one of mine included. (Witness my neglect here if you so desire.)
The reason for my silence lately has been an exceptionally brutal case of writer’s block. I’ve experienced times in the past where writing hasn’t been the easiest thing; however, when you’re writing for grades, you don’t have a choice but to put words to paper, even if those words are absolute shit. Now that I’m writing, not because someone told me to, but rather out of choice, the push to generate content can sometimes be a struggle.
When I hit a wall this time, I cut myself a break—told myself that something significant would come along “inspiring me” (please read that in the most sarcastic, blasé tone possible) to string together something coherent enough to post.
Yeah, that didn’t happen.
It’s not that my life has become boring—Torry and the people who occupy it are the furthest thing from boring. Life has just been life. I get up, go to work, come home, see friends every so often, and am a hermit the rest of the time. I’ve settled into a familiar routine, and I thought this was the reason for the ensuing writer’s block.
So, I tried all the usual tricks to get my head unstuck: I read, I free wrote, I cleaned my workspace, I tried writing somewhere else entirely, I pillaged my notebooks for ideas, I reviewed old pieces of writing—essays, poems, non-fiction—and nothing seemed to do the trick.
When it comes to writing, I tend to be a masochist. I find myself craving the work. I love the planning, researching, drafting, and editing. There are few things in this world that excite me more than the process of piecing together disjointed thoughts and watching them slowly come together. But for the past month or so, even thinking about doing the kind of work that normally brings me joy, feels arduous. And not being able to figure out why this was happening caused me much frustration.
That is, until one of my darling Scottish friends asked me this question, “Is this what you imagined your life would look like when you left home?”
No. The answer I gave him was, “Absolutely not.” I didn’t plan to live in Aberdeen. I never anticipated working with and learning from chefs. I didn’t expect to find the friends I have so quickly. I never thought my homesickness would turn into an almost inaudible whisper. And I would have never guessed that planning a trip home would accompany one to return.
Honestly, before I left, I didn’t think I would stay away this long. I figured my homesickness would get the best of me and that I would be back in my frozen homeland before seeing my 25th birthday. I am happy to say that me, circa September 2018, was very wrong.
Of course, there isn’t a day that passes where I don’t think of home. I will never stop missing my family and friends and pets and plants and the shoes I should’ve packed but didn’t. Canada will always have a hold on me because of these things—not so much the shoes; they do sell footwear in Scotland—but that hold is not the same death grip it was when I left. Instead, I’ve started to feel the hold of this country tighten—quite literally, my friend had me in a chokehold not that long ago.
Okay, back to the point. The question my friend asked me made me realize why I’ve been stuck in my writing. I feel so far removed from the student, writer, and more generally, the person I was before I left that the writing I was doing on Canadian soil (even the material from earlier this trip) has become foreign to me. I feel disconnected from the voice of that writer because she and I aren’t really the same person anymore.
Sure, we speak the same, we look pretty much identical (my hair is longer now, that’s really the only difference), we still don’t drink enough water, blue is still my favourite colour, we still call them “pants” instead of “trousers,” but there are many things that have changed. I don’t drink nine cups of coffee a day anymore. I’ve started knitting again. I can officially crack an egg with one hand. I have an easier time understanding the drunken, Scottish dialect—honestly, I feel like I’m learning another language. And, most importantly, for the first time in my life, I’m starting to feel comfortable in my own skin.
I’ve always had a hard time liking myself. For as long as I can recall, I’ve seen myself as a selfish, rude, moronic, hideous, and all around bad person. Yes, there have been moments of positivity challenging that thinking—doing well on an assignment, catching good lighting looking in a mirror, etc.—but my anxiety ensured that those moments were only ever fleeting. And it can be hard to stand up for yourself in order to take care of your mental health when you honestly believe the air in front of your face would only be wasted on your breath.
I am happy to report, however, that that sort of thinking is starting to fade. Slowly but surely, the moments when I like myself are starting to outnumber the ones when I don’t, which, in turn, has gifted me a more content disposition. I don’t know how this happened or why it took leaving home to spark this change, but I am ridiculously grateful it did.
Earlier when I said, “No. Absolutely not.” what I meant was this: I didn’t ever think I’d get to feel happy for prolonged periods of time; I didn’t know that I would like how it feels to love myself; I didn’t ever imagine I’d be able to muzzle the voice in my head constantly screaming, “You don’t deserve this life. You are not worthy of love from anyone, especially not yourself. Your presence is nothing but a waste of space.”
Simply put, this change of headspace has taken me by surprise, to the point where I didn’t realize it was happening until a simple question brought it to my attention. Now, I need to learn how to employ this happy “I kind of, sort of, am starting to like myself as a person” voice in my writing without everything it says sounding disingenuously positive or like it was ripped off from a self-help book. I guess “stuck” or “blocked” are the wrong words to describe the present struggle with my writing, more that I feel like I’ve been given new legs and need to teach myself how to walk again.
Solivagant 