There’s a game my kids like to play, usually while they’re supposed to be eating dinner.
The first floor of our house forms a loop from our table to the play area to the front hallway to the kitchen and back again.
When they don’t want to eat dinner, they stand up and run away from the table as quickly as they can, careening into the front hallway, through the kitchen, and back out until they’ve reached the table again.
“Hey,” they say, adopting a tough guy attitude. “I’m back.”
“Hey!” their dad and I reply. “Welcome back.”
Then, as we try to invite them to sit down and have some dinner with us, they go running off again, leaving us to shout at their retreating backs, “Hey, where you going?”
They love it. They will run this loop a dozen times. Sometimes we try to get them to eat a bite of food every time they complete a loop. Sometimes we seize the opportunity to finish our own dinners before the next stage of the night begins.
But the pattern never varies. They always come back, and we always welcome them back. No hard feelings. We’re just glad they returned and want them to join us. Then they run away again, giggling madly.
I’ve had this game on my mind as I’ve been thinking about the changes I’ve experienced in my own life over the past several years. The projects I’ve started, and the ones I’ve been forced to abandon. The way I get too tired to carry on with something that I want to do. How I continue to think about that thing and how it eventually becomes so large and daunting that coming back to the project feels like an almost insurmountable obstacle.
I’ve thought about that with this blog, which I was initially so determined to maintain before everything else took up my time. How I’d reach the end of the day and couldn’t bear to write anything even though words were rattling around in my head. And how, after a while, it felt like I couldn’t write a new article because it had been too long.
But now I’m looking at it from a different perspective. Why abandon the thing you want to do to bring a little creativity back into your life? Why turn it into a point of stress by making it align to firm deadlines that at this stage of life are impossible to maintain?
What if you just…let it vibe?
So, hi, I’m back.
I can’t promise to a set schedule, but I don’t want to let the blog die. I sometimes still have interesting ideas or want to write about a book that I read, or just have something I want to say or try out. And I’m giving myself permission to do it on the schedule that makes sense for me. I know that’s not the way you’re supposed to do writing on the internet. Considering what I do for a living, I know that updating your content based on vibes is kind of the opposite of what you should do.
But nothing makes sense anyway, so why not embrace the chaos.
I’ll come back when it makes sense. I’ll write some stuff. Then I’ll go away. And I might come back soon, or I might stay away for a little longer. But you can rest easy with the knowledge that I’ll turn the corner at some point and come tearing out of the kitchen again with something to say.
I hope you’ll welcome me back each time I do. And maybe the irregularly timed missives can bring a little bit of interest to your inbox instead of becoming yet another thing that starts piling up that you haven’t read yet.
It’s good to be here. I hope you’re enjoying your meal.
Gabs Writes 