Flatline Words

All my writing lately seems to suck.

It’s like I’ve forgotten how to do it—tell my story—it’s like my story has gotten impacted in me somehow and won’t budge. I don’t know if my story will ever return.

When I wrote articles for the AJC, I still had story words. They flowed. They had meaning. They didn't flatline like the most recent words I've put on the page.

Maybe I’m not seeing the potential in these new words. Maybe I’ve forgotten how to see potential in them—potential in my story--potential in me. Maybe flatline words come in direct proportion to a flatline life.

And when did that happen—when did my life turn flat? When did I stop caring how much weight I gained, or whether I socialized with friends, or whether I dusted each week, or whether I had a conversation with my husband? When did I give up the possibility of a life with heartbeats, a life of pulsation and passion and joy and prosperity and love?

I gave up the possibility when I gave up on the power of my own story.

Our stories matter. The simple way we began our fourth grade autobiography, “I was born in . . .” is the first clue to our narrative, the beginning of the pulses of our life and journey. When we decide to give up on the importance of who we are, of what we are here to do, what an injustice we do to the tiny baby we were that was born into such a promise of story. We must honor ourselves into the fullness of who we are.

But that seems a contradiction to a flatline life doesn’t it? How can we honor who we are if we are barely getting by—if each day is as generic as the last, if the coffee tastes the same, the car sounds the same when we crank it, the stale air in the office smells the same, and our co-workers become a mere backdrop against a bad play where we are the main character and our performance is a bit lackluster.

I don't know the antidote for life when everything seems lackluster. All I know is that I seem to have lost my writing voice. It disappeared with my settling for anything.

I can’t write details because it is too painful, too real, too believable, this life I’ve allowed myself. Where do I go from here, what do I do from here, what is my purpose from here? I am a willing heart and soul with a faint heartbeat.

I don’t know how to get myself back.

For that reason sometimes I don’t even want to try. I don’t want to try unless there is a guarantee my words could change someone, unless something I say could help another.

And when I think of my words changing someone, I hear the inner critic sound off-you don’t know how to write a short story or a poem or a book or an essay. You don’t.

Mentally I have the words "You don’t" etched over and over on the lining of my brain. I can’t let go of the fact that I’m not perfect, that there will be things I’m not able to do, places that I won’t fit in.

Trying to write about it makes me tired. Makes the next word harder to type. Makes stopping seem a better idea than keeping going. Makes being a writer seem improbable for me.

Today I’ve written myself out of my own life, and I know the only way back to my story and my true self is through the very words that won't yet come.