Getting unstuck.

This is what happens when you post every single weekday for over 16 years and then switch to sporadic updates. That regular posting schedule, putting something up no matter what, helped keep the gears greased. It also kept me from double-thinking or getting in my own way when it came to my creative output here. That ended up being a double-edged sword once I hit a period in my life where perhaps authenticity and sharing of my feelings were best kept to myself. It took too long for that to really register, but once it did the gates slammed down and I decided to suspend the daily regimen in favor of less frequent posts focused more on the exterior world than my interior one.

It was the right move.

But now enough time has passed that I've been trying to return to a daily schedule again, and I'm having a hard time doing so. There's a new inner wariness to my output that I'm grappling with and trying to figure out how to deal with. For instance, this post you're reading has been started no less than five times in the last week, only to have each draft trashed. I keep starting to go down one path of ideas or another and then I freeze, worried that what I'm saying could be taken the wrong way. This is a ridiculous response to have when you're writing about a song you like or a movie to check out or even the Halloween decorations in your neighborhood, but I think I've gotten so gun-shy that it causes me to overthink every single word. And that's even dumber because, in the end, people read what they want to read into whatever they're reading. Once you put it out there, it's free game for interpretation, right? It's a central part of the compact between creator and participant, ferchrissakes!

So I'm making a pact with myself to return to daily writing and get over this inner blockage. That may mean some days I'm back to just posting a video or sharing some music, and others ruminating on more personal reflections. But, to me, the most important thing is returning to that regular schedule since I think that, for most of the time I've been writing publicly, that's the secret to keeping my mental gears well-oiled and turning. And while I never ever take you, dear reader, for granted, this is definitely something I'm doing for me more than I'm doing it for you. Hopefully you'll reap some benefits—even if it's just mild enjoyment or the occasional new cultural discovery—but I'm the one that'll benefit the most.

Thanks for your patience, and most of all for sticking around. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.