It's been a battle for me to write lately. I've been in a place of self-censorship and insecurity that makes me feel like my words are useless and have no meaning. I seem to be able to pull together 250 words about Maren Morris' new album, and other things that pay the bills, but when it comes to getting real and getting personal, I have had this hardcore block for awhile. It's straight fear based, and I hate it. I don't know what I am so afraid of, because like Morris says in her interview, there will be critics everywhere whether we act or speak or think or whether we do none of those things.

I guess I've had to work in jobs that required intense self-regulation and thought suppression, and it's hard to recover from that. I have also faced some conflict in recent months that has made me question the validity of my own thoughts. It's made me re-examine how I view things and my own worthiness to have, much less offer, an opinion. I've also had to work in jobs that required intense self-regulation and thought suppression, and it's hard to recover from that.

Don't get me wrong, humility is a beautiful thing, it really is, but unworthiness is an ugly monster that paralyzes. I hate being paralyzed. It's so inefficient. Hate it. There's such a fine line between the humility of knowing that your ideas and perspectives are never more than half-baked in this crazy world, and the harsh judgement of external (and internal) voices telling you that you're an idiot, or that you've been more wrong than right. Usually I stay sane by remembering that I never have all the answers, or the whole story, but lately, I have felt like I don't have any answers and I haven't even gotten into the first chapter of the story.

So I've been on silent mode. All the buzzing ideas and thoughts are muted and I push them down and away to avoid letting anybody know they're there, much less subject them for review. The worst part about this mode of operating is that I feel dumber every single day. If we aren't throwing our ideas and thoughts around and having them pitched back to us with tweaks and new understanding, our brains are just lying fallow, absorbing whatever tripe is funneled into them. That's where I've been. Absorbing tripe. Not sharpening, not reflecting, just becoming saturated with unfiltered blather that is shoveled at me. I'm so over it. I am so ready to be "woke." To start risking my own thoughts again. And to wrestle with the fear and pain of conflict if that's what they create.

I still have things to say. I've just been hitting the silent button for so long that I feel like I've forgotten how to use my words. I've lost my voice.

I'm setting out today on a month long adventure to new places, doing awesome things, and it's time to find my voice again. It's time to see the world and process it through my own flawed perspective and see what new things I can add to it. It's time to talk about it and hear all of the things I have missed. It's time to be sharpened again. It's time take my soul off silent mode and be grateful that I have one, trusting that the voice I have been given was so that someone could hear it. Silence is ok for a season of rest, but it's not ok for a season of avoidance.

Bear with me as I awkwardly blunder my way back into thinking, and stumble around the words that have become so foreign to me.

I missed NaNoWriMo, but I plan to write December into an epoch, one sentence at a time, and I think I will do it from exciting, exotic places. Because why not?