several months in the making.

This morning had the kind of thick fog that obstructs the sun to the point that it becomes a bright white circle in the sky. When the weather is like this – when everything has a hazy look about it – that’s when I begin to feel like writing. I haven’t written in several months, even outside of this blog. I’ve abandoned both the pen and my laptop’s keyboard. 

I’ve been trying to figure out just what has separated me from writing. For the first few months of post-grad, I could get away with the claim that I was taking a break from anything relating to it, simply because of burnout or just needing time away from exercising that part of myself. I mean, I had been in school for 18 years or so. My senior year of undergrad took it out of me in that sense; I wrote more papers than I can comprehend (or even remember). However, I knew that I couldn’t use the school excuse any longer once it hit September, maybe October. This whole month of November, I have been feeling an internal obligation to write. In my notes app, I have several beginnings of blog ideas, and yet I never tried to sit down in my Google Docs and explore one of them. 

Today is the day that I get back to it, though, slowly but surely. It’s difficult, primarily because it’s like shaking off the rust and practicing something I haven’t touched in quite some time. The other factor that has deterred me is the fear that whatever I write won’t sound right. At least to me. I have the desire for my words to feel like apricot jam on warm toast. Does that make sense? I wish I had such a way with words that people experienced the words as they read them. My fear extends to the content of my writing. I remember being a kid and attempting to write stories, but they sounded so cliche. That’s how some of my blogs have felt, and how it feels sometimes to try to write anything. I think I might be good at writing bad middle-school-level romance books if I tried my hand at it, if that gives you any sense of how it feels to write at times. 

I know that practice makes perfect, and I will never succeed in my first attempt. Well, I say that. But I’ve recently started baking pies and the first one I baked was a total success. The dough I had made from scratch was perfect and the apples were perfectly seasoned with sugar and cinnamon and nutmeg, cooked by the steam under my (intentionally) crooked lattice. So if I can bake a pie pretty well on my first try, why can’t I write prose like Le Guin or poetry like Limón?

I wonder if it’s because I don’t have the experiences that they have, or if I lack the kind of mind it takes to write something great. I feel less pressure to write something great, which I can chalk up to the growth I’ve experienced over the last six months. Since graduating in May, it seems like I have begun to slip into one of the most successful post-grad lives I could have hoped for myself. But it’s not one I would have imagined during my senior year, and definitely not one I had seen for myself when I was 18 and just a freshman. 

I work at a Starbucks and still live in Wilmore, the same tiny town that I went to school in and told myself I would never live in. And yet, I feel a kind of peace in my life that I’ve been seeking for I’m not sure how long. I live with two friends in a house that’s surrounded by cow farms, with our cat named Fish, and a neighbor named Cricket. I’ve been baking a lot (hence the pies), found that I love to cook meals for my friends, get frustrated when I try to play the guitar and the strings are too buzzy. I get too stressed and upset from work, but I’m cracking the code to separating work life from personal life. I go through phases of different crafts, which I put less pressure on myself to look perfect and allow it to be an obviously novice-crafted work. I’ve watched The Crown and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Wicked 2. I’ve started several books and only finished a couple. I spend time with my boyfriend and laugh more than I used to. I try harder to keep in touch with family members who I haven’t always gotten along with. I’ve listened to my grandma laugh and asked myself why I haven’t become friends with her sooner. I've watched one of my best friends get married. I’ve said goodbye to my rat dog, and felt a different grief than I knew I was capable of. I’ve traveled to Paris again, as well as exploring Poland and Germany, adding two countries to my list. I’ve drunk seven dollar wine from my IKEA wineglass as I waited for my ramen to finish on the stove. I have let the walls of my teeth yellow from the coffees I’ve made myself. I bought a bed frame for my mattress that was once floor-bound, and then a striped duvet cover to put on top. I’ve been to the Iowa State Fair and played rounds of backgammon over breakfast and drip coffee sweetened by heavy cream and brown sugar. 

I’m getting a taste of adulthood in a more positive light than I expected. It’s tender, and calm but chaotic. It feels like a life that I’m looking forward to growing into. It’s giving me hope for a life of simplicity and warm pecan lattes at home. I know that adulthood won’t always feel like this, but as for now, I'm grateful. 

As for now, I feel like I can keep writing, but I don’t want to go too overboard with my first blog back. Thanks for reading, it’s nice to talk again.