On My Inability to Write and Dealing with Grief–Wordle 434

Wordle 434.

The stream of glittery ideas, smooth and elusive like fish, seems to have dried up. It’s not my fault. The past couple of weeks have been extremely difficult for a few reasons and I haven’t had the energy or the mind-space to write as I usually do. I’ve been shuffling along from day to day, wrestling with surges of feelings that trip me up when I’m trying to get through my ordinary routine. 

My dog passed away last Wednesday. I was going to bring him home this Christmas from my in-laws’ house, where they were taking care of him for me until I became more settled. But he got into some poison in the neighborhood. And that was that. Ironically, he was going to be my emotional support dog. Now I feel like part of me has died too and is buried in the dirt with him.

In the midst of these churning emotions, I still want to write, but I can’t. How do I write when I’m so sad, when I can barely muster the words to describe what’s happening? I breathe in the steam from my tea and try to set a lower bar for myself. I’m allowed to struggle. I’m allowed to have trouble functioning at the moment.

And now I realize that I’ve written three paragraphs and am starting a fourth. There are words on the page where there weren’t words before. I’ve managed to write something, however brief. Perhaps a way of dealing with grief is to write about it. Perhaps words, even the simple act of constructing a sentence, can be the kiss that awakens the sleeping muse.

At the moment, my cheer may be as fleeting as ideas or fish, but maybe I can coax it back.

~H