Every Wednesday I send out a newsletter. The list is largely made up of readers who have been with me for years. When I was sending out today’s newsletter I ended up down a rabbit hole of going through old newsletters I had sent as Harassedmom back in 2016.
My first newsletter, on Mailchimp, was sent out in 2016 to only 55 subscribers. I religiously sent out the newsletter every Friday for ages. The more I read the more I missed the person I was. I know this sounds so strange because the normal narrative is people miss who they were before kids and in 2016 I was knee deep in raising 4 kids, dealing with David’s job loss, starting a business and literally trying to survive. But I sounded happy in those letters, excited. Even in the one where I had a mini meltdown in my bathroom, I sounded stressed but still hopeful.
Obviously losing Cameron has darkened my soul a little bit and forever changed me but it is more than that. It is different.
I think this has to with the girl I used to be as a blogger. The girl who used to share everything and anything without a care in the world for who read it or liked it or shared.
The girl who wanted to share her story with the world – even the boring, silly, badly written parts.
The girl who shared posts about every minutia of her day, just because she could.
The girl who shared badly taken photos (that got better) as a way to document her life and the lives of her children.
The girl who just wrote.
I miss her. I miss writing. I miss having words.
I have them briefly now, then they go again and I have to fight to get them back.
My friend Ansie once said to be that her biggest fear was one day waking up and not knowing how to write – she meant it in a literal sense – like not being able to hold a pen and write on paper, not necessarily write a sentence or a story. I didn’t really get it because I always thought, well you could still speak and type (?) so life would carry on. But now I feel the same – I am scared I will never find my words. My story is not done, I need my words to keep telling it.
Maybe this anxiety is causing the words to remain stuck out there in the universe.
Maybe I used up all the words I was given by the word gods.
Maybe there are no more words.
But then why do I still feel the need, like every breathe I take, to write. To share my story and tell my truth. To spew the chaos in my brain onto pages and blogs and newsletters. To be open and honest with the good, the bad, the mediocre and everything that makes life chaotically beautiful.
How can there be no words when there is still so much left to say.
I am hoping that if I write, anything, especially on the days when the words don’t flow that they will eventually come back. I am hoping that the more I do it, the more excited I will get once again to write because I miss it, every minute of every day. I miss constructing sentences and getting excited about topics and sharing stories.
I miss the writer I used to be.
