Taking My Own Advice

I've long said that there is no such thing as writer's block. That it's just a block you put on your own creative flow when you're just being stubborn. You're unwilling to write something that isn't good, so you write nothing at all. But the good is buried under a layer or two of bad and only way through is to just write it out.

Writing is rewriting as they say. And blogging isn't writing, as many bloggers on the interwebs are all too happy to prove. So I'm gonna ride this impulse to write right on through this wall I have in my mind (or is it in my fingers?). I apologize in advance to anyone that happens to stumble upon this blog. Maybe I should start making that my standard sign off actually...

I've been in a real funk lately. I've been eating poorly, not exercising, watching a lot of TV (even by my standard) and doing little else. I've gained back a bunch of the weight I lost in the fall. Now I could blame it on my emotional state, or my social life. I could blame it on my never ending search for gainful employ. The truth is, I don't really know what it is. But I know when it started and that's my best clue to all of this. It's been a slow progression into melancholy since January. This malaise started there. Time for some honesty I guess.

I had a friendship with a girl in the fall that slowly turned into more, at least on my end. But I could not allow myself to take the next step because this girl is not a Christian. As my friend Graham described it, "It's the only thing that's a problem and it's the most important thing."

I couldn't even allow myself to find out if she felt the same way at that point (in hindsight now, I suspect she very well may have), because I was pretty infatuated. My emotions were torn enough already, I couldn't risk finding out a relationship was actually possible. I'm fairly certain I wouldn't have been able to resist.

It all would have been great if I could have asked her out, gotten shot down and moved on. But I had reached the point where I no longer wanted to ask her out because I couldn't risk her saying yes. So after agonizing over this for much longer than I should have, I did the only sensible thing I had left at my disposal; I ran away. (and yes, I know sensible may be generous; I've had a lot more time to think about this than you have).

One day I just stopped contacting her. I stopped going to events or places I might run into her. I had made my decision and I needed to stay firm, but I could not stand to be around her in the state I was in. It was too painful and I feared my twitterpation would betray me.

The unfortunate side effect of this was that I simultaneously cut out an entire social circle that we shared. And for the better part of the last four months, I have only seen a handful of those friends, a handful of times. These were people that I was mostly seeing on a near weekly basis for the prior six months or so.

So I cut that hole out of my life and I started to sink. Whether that was the cause or just a contributing factor or even the last straw on a paraplegic camel, they are most definitely related. Now I don't know if this will make any difference or not as far as my somber demeanor of late, but I felt like I've been internalizing this for too long and I'm striving to be more vulnerable on this blog. So there you go. If you're the praying sort, I could use some prayer for this lack of motivation. I need to get some kind of motor running again.