Yesterday night, I couldn’t sleep. That’s nothing new—middle age things. That’s right. I am now officially middle-aged. Or at least somewhat close. I keep thinking maybe, because of human advancement, we’ll be living until at least 120 years. In which case, I am nowhere near a midlife anything. But still.
Lately, I’ve been feeling a restlessness that no scroll, no conversation, no Netflix binge can still. Even during the day. And when I’m really quiet, I can hear the itch to pick up my journal and write. At night, the urge is stronger. During the day, some voices are louder…
“What if you wrote again, Ema?”
I usually shake my head in dismal response. Because… FEAR. I don’t know how to answer that question.
Whereas the romantic in me thinks writing again would feel like returning to a friend I once loved, my inner child remains unsure if that friend even wants to speak to me. And so… I’m paralyzed.
(Ok. Pause. Now that I think of it, there’s a friend of mine who isn’t speaking to me and—well—this is exactly how I feel about that too. I’ll double-click on that later.)
I’ve written before about writer’s block, but I recently unlocked a new layer of hell: creative paralysis.
For a long time—say, about four years—I haven’t really been writing. At least not in the way a serious writer should. Part of it was life doing what it does. The other part? Just a lot of noise. The kind of noise that drowns out any flicker of humor, tragedy, or inspiration that could drive a story.
I think I lost touch with my inner narrator—the one who connects to the characters and listens to their stories, then reaches out to me so I can spin moments into metaphor and silence into sensation. Losing her was terrifying. Life got so loud in my head that I couldn’t hear myself. And losing that connection to story made me imagine a dead muse in a castle somewhere—or at the very least, passed out.
As I write this now, I think the reason I couldn’t write wasn’t that I had nothing to say. I stopped because I didn’t know how to say what I needed to say without breaking.
Man, I really admire people who can channel sadness into writing. For me, grief choked out every bit of light. I felt like there was nothing left to connect me to my creative core.
But in the last few months, I’ve kind of started returning to myself. I think the insomnia and the urge to write are some forms of muscle memory. The words have started to return—not in a rush, but in fragments. What excites me is that these half-formed thoughts come while I’m showering or doing life things. When I’m driving. When I take slow walks on the beach.
It feels like I’m reconciling with my inner story concierge. Maybe I can start trusting that the world of story can hold me again.
I know this isn’t a triumphant return. It’s not a grand announcement either. I left so many projects hanging when I went on freeze, so there’s no shiny new thing to plug. But I do feel like there’s plenty inside me that’s aching to be heard.
So, I’m here. Once a week. For the rest of the year.
Not to impress.
Not to perform.
Just to tell the truth, as best I can, in the moment I’m in.
I’m back.
And I’m beginning again.