Re-starting

It's been 12 years to be exact. It's been that long since I put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard so-to-speak. Truth be told, there have been numerous attempts in between then and now, but I just got stuck. Stuck in trying to make things look perfect, trying to decide what I should and should not say in a public space. 

So I'm done with all that now, all the to-ing and fro-ing, and I just want to write - about things I have wanted to say for a long time, about things I'm processing, about things I'm struggling with, about things I've learnt. Maybe some of this will make sense to someone reading this, or maybe not. And it really does not matter. Because writing is about becoming, you have to do it first for yourself or it will not mean anything to anyone else. 

Re-starting has been a theme in my life the last decade. I have had to re-start my life in so many ways, whether in my career, or my faith, or my friendships. Re-starting is tough, you are back to ground zero and have to build everything from scratch. But it's never really from scratch if you think about it, because you've come to this point having already accumulated some things, weathered some storms, scraped your knees on the ground, tasted some victories. So it is on this foundation you start to build - not completely zero, thankfully! And you get to write the next chapter into being. 

2020 was supposed to be a glorious start of a new decade. Here I am having crossed into the second act of the year, and it has completely NOT felt like the glorious start everyone was so sure it would be. Life has been nothing but unpredictable, isolating and exhausting. The loss of purpose is palpable, I don't think I've ever been in a place where I've stopped making plans for the next few months - this is simply because you don't really know how the whole pandemic situation will unfold, and how that will affect your life. 

The only tangible thing is the here and now, the day you have in front of you, the meal you're going to have later. I've found myself retreating inwards, trying to locate that inner compass. I find it every now and then, but to be honest, it's hard to keep heading north when you're on your own. Sure, you can keep focused but what does all of it mean (fulfilling your life purpose or calling) without people around you, without the life and community that used to encircle you, providing the necessary structures of meaning and purpose for life?  

So it's back to the drawing board again, re-starting in a very different world today that pretty much changed with the flick of a light switch. But then we're not actually at ground zero, I don't think we have journeyed this far just to have everything reversed in an instant. There must be a new way to grow, or a new path to take in all of this mayhem. Maybe not yet as obvious, and it may require some investigating and unearthing on our part to figure things out, to re-orientate. But if we keep at it, it will eventually become clear to us. I know it feels like forever but it's really only early days yet. And if there's one thing I've learnt this season, is to give things some time :)