Treading Water

So, yeah, it’s been awhile. My latest blog entry has a months long gap between it and it’s predecessor.

What gives?

During BlogHer, @MajorBedHead asked if I had stopped blogging altogether. It sure seemed that way. I would sit down, have an idea to blog about, then start writing. Then I’d find something to do, never get back to writing and just couldn’t muster up the urge to continue.

Like the White House’s “Summer of Recovery” my summer was productive as a wet noodle screwing in a hot lightbulb. That’s not entirely fair. The recovery act DID actually help maintain and create some jobs. And I had a minor one in that time.

But as I wrote my piece for yesterday, I realized that what I had been doing was retreating. My long stint of unemployment was getting to me on an emotional level. My efforts in the real estate proved beyond frustrating and frankly really demoralizing. My luck was so bad with it that veterans in the office where I was working even said “Wow, What the fuck?”

I’d also been doing some production work for a friend who was participating in a theater festival here. So I decided to ditch showing apartments and just focus on that. And when it ended, I found as much motivation to show apartments as I had with writing in this blog.

The difference was, I knew I was supposed to be writing, whereas with the real estate gig, I felt no such urging.

I don’t seem to be the only one @LesleeHorner of Waiting For The Click had flat out decided to stop blogging on a regular basis, @2MuchPerfection has also been a very infrequent writer, and even @MajorBedHead spent some time away from her blog while dealing with the end of her marriage. @MiaOnTop took a hiatus as she moved to Texas from New York. There was a lot of shifting going on. The thing is that everyone else seemed to know where they were shifting to. I still haven’t figured out what is going on with me.

What really shocked me though, as I logged onto Blogger to write the other day was that that not only had I not written, I’d been pretty piss poor in following up on the blog’s that I read. Musings of A Madman would email me to remind me to read up (though lately he’s been AWOL with his new life), Leslee would knock on my Facebook to ask if I’d read her. It wasn’t personal. I just wasn’t busting out. But when I looked at the Blogroll on my page, I realized that I just hadn’t kept up with anyone that I had been reading on a regular basis.

I really had withdrawn. If not for Twitter and Facebook, it’s entirely possible that I’d have had almost no contact with anyone for most of the summer.

There are other factors. Some creative outlets that I’ve had have fizzled because of time and circumstance, so I’ve had to shift slowly to different creative writing outlets that are more self reliant. This isn’t easy for a guy with ADD.

I’ve done a little other writing here and there. Something that may become a one man piece about my father’s suicide and the role that Fear has played in his/my/the world’s life. Slow progress but coming along.

I’ve smattered around with an adaptation of a series of books that I love too. But just smattered.

A lot of my energy has gone into just changing my frame of mine. Yes, affirmations, meditations. Things to bring my mind away from despair and back to a place of forward thinking and inspiration.

I don’t despair, and haven’t in the 6 months that I’ve been out of work, but like a tired swimmer treading water, I’m managing to keep from drowning, yet can’t seem to figure out what direction I need to swim to get back to shore. I don’t know what that shore looks like and I just don’t want to keep swimming in the wrong direction and end up in deeper, rougher waters.

Overall, I’m doing ok. I’m healthy, I’m enduring. But I’m not thriving. I’m not having any fun.

But something is “clicking” to an extent. Here I am, writing, and I am catching up on the blogs I haven’t kept up on. I’ve rearranged my room which is no small thing considering how small and oddly shaped my room is. I’ve also started re-engaging with the polyamorous community in New York. It looks like I may be doing some more production work for a small production of a play here for even smaller money, but it’s work and in a field I love. And there’s an interview coming up at the end of the month that I’m not excited about but like the prospect of SOMEthing cooking in the work situation.

I think I’m back. I hope I’m welcome. And I hope to keep some momentum going.

Thanks for your patience if you haven’t given up entirely on me.