Blank

For the last two days, I’ve been struggling to find something to write about.  The weird thing is, I don’t feel burned out or stressed, the typical causes of writing failure.  I just . . . don’t have anything to say right now.  Go on, you can make fun of me for that–especially if you know me offline.

I suppose part of it is that I’m working on some fiction and I’m pouring my energy into that project, which I’m currently having beta-read.  I’m excited about what I’m writing, and I’m enjoying the process.  (Nope, not going to tell you yet–I’d like to get the whole thing done and beta’d.  I may post it as a serial on my fiction blog.)  I only have so many hours in the day, since I also need to work on editing projects and homeschool my daughter and drive the kids around to their activities.

Another part is just a function of not having much to say.  I’ve spent years deconstructing a shaky faith built on a legalistic version of Christianity.  I’m now in process of reconstruction.  I was at church the other night and I mentioned to a couple of people there that coming into a church that doesn’t teach salvation based on receiving Christ as personal savior has been alien to me–in a good way.  Being in a place where the emphasis is on “God is awesome!” rather than “You are unworthy!” has been refreshing.  To an extent, I still don’t fully trust church as an institution.  I’m still guarded when it comes to participation in church activities.  But I’m healing, and that’s what matters to me.

The third piece is that I think I’m softening on some things and learning as I go.  When I left legalistic Christianity, I temporarily exchanged it for legalistic feminism.  That’s not healthy.  I discovered that feminism can be just as much a belief system, in a sense, as religion.  I needed to distance myself from people claiming to speak for me and from terminology (which I’ve used and now regret) that I view as harmful.  No matter how many times women tell me that they have the right to be angry, I can’t see how “kill all men” is helpful in any way.  I’m not talking about “being nice” in hopes of getting people in our corner; I’m talking about how anger can be expressed without that kind of hyperbole.  I don’t feel pressure to conform to someone else’s feminism any more than I feel pressure to conform to someone else’s Christianity.

I’m still figuring out how to write from this place.  It’s where I started–the gap between my faith and my experiences of the world.  Now I need to learn to write from the gap between my feminism and my experiences of the world.  It’s the place in which I don’t want to hurt other women, but in which I need to protect my own spirit as well.  I learned that being angry all the time made me self-righteous and burned me out to the point that I had to block people on social media because they were indirectly causing my anxiety to peak.

Anyway, I’m sorry about the crickets in here.  I know that if I’m patient with myself and allow for the time I need, I’ll be able to write in here again.  For now, I’m going to work on other projects while I enjoy the beautiful sunshine streaming in my windows.  Whatever today brings for you, may you find your small ray of hope in it.