I Should Be Writing... Something Else

I've started this post, deleted it, started it again, put it in draft mode, started it again, put it in draft mode more times than I can count. I initially stopped blogging because I went back to school to work on a PhD. I briefly returned when Maggie was sick as well as when I discovered I needed surgery on my right hip (honestly I think I let it trail off before I went back to school because Maggie died before I started my first semester back... but time is a blur...). I probably intended to keep up the writing, but I imagine the stress of working on and passing comprehensive exams, having surgery during winter break, recovering from surgery during break and while back in school--full time with an assistantship--made me forget. This would be rather on brand for my brain. Regardless, I never got back to it.

But during the last year or so the idea of returning to it seemed like a good idea. I wanted to write about my difficulties and their effects on my work. Some unidentifiable feeling kept stopping me from ever completing a post. But today I got the urge to write about it again. I nearly stopped before I ever completed a sentence. But.

But I've been having a ridiculously tough time. Working on a PhD while completely healthy, with no outside personal stressors is a difficult task to undertake. Throw in all my health issues, including a likely diagnosis of EIB I learned about today, and multiple personal issues that sometimes feel insurmountable... well, it feels like my own personal Mount Everest.

And it's the side that nearly anyone can get a permit to climb because like the pictures we've seen on the news, my climb is fucking overcrowded, not with people but with thoughts and sometimes pain and even more thoughts. This is, at least in part, why I regularly attend counseling.

Still, I nearly didn't finish a single sentence. But I wanted to write something even if it had virtually nothing to do with my dissertation proposal. My chair says writing even just a little bit is useful too. So I figure even if this isn't about my work, my brain is still being forced to string thoughts together in a meaningful way.

I don't know where my return to blogging will go, especially considering the landscape of it has changed vastly since I first began. But today I envision posts about my depression, why it makes this path so tough, and why I continue on despite the asshole in my brain telling me I suck. I envision posts about my hobbies and the way they help me. I envision something that almost no one will read but may make the one person who does read it feel better, maybe even feel seen or less alone.