reprise

two days from thanksgiving 2014.  three years and nearly eight months since i last put words on virtual paper under the auspices of a blog.  i see a few feeble attempts to resuscitate my writing in the last entries here.. but as i'm certain to have expounded on years ago, i'm an all or nothing kind of girl. and despite living with this on/off switch for 40 years, i have yet to find a way to flip it at will.

that being said, one thing is certain... i may shelve an obsession for a time, but where there's passion and joy i will revisit again and again.  and in my writing, there are both.

in my languid rereading of years' past blogs, i am struck by the effervescent zeal and inspiration that drove me to pour words out, page after page... and the abrupt stop to the creative product when the struggles of reality crowded out the buoyant bliss in which i wrote.

on the one hand, i thought to myself, it makes sense that in the thrall and thrill of a new love i would find my greatest creative inspiration and of course it would fade when that honeymoon subsided.  but i also recognize the lie of omission in that explanation.  it wasn't for wont of time or even of emotionally moving content that my writing here ceased.. it wasn't for lack of desire to write or forgetfulness.. it wasn't even 'dead to me', as things i'm once obsessed with may suddenly become.

it was fear.  it was shame.  it was a facade that i didn't want to taint or tarnish.  the first two hundred and eighty one posts in this blog were in large part a tribute and a testimony to the relationship i had just begun.. starting this blog only a few months after we met, it was my creative outlet in a time when my emotional enthusiasm was unbounded.

when my marriage began to crumble around me and while i hid from that reality and my part in it, i also ducked out of the parts of my life that made me joyful.  i stopped writing..and reading.. i stopped working out.. i stopped exploring my world, literally and figuratively. and i stopped connecting.  in fact, i isolated myself.  both from my estranged wife and from the daily connections i once treasured, both known and yet-to-be formed..

and the last thing i wanted to do was blog about it.  exposing my utter failure at the relationship that held the headliner's role here was simply too vulnerable.   and also, in the utterly fantastic way i approach all of my pains and struggles (fantastic meaning fantasy-based, that is), as counterpoint to my notion growing up that 'writing it down verifies its occurrence', if i didn't write about it.. if i didn't acknowledge it....

yes, denial is a powerful drug.

so, here i am two years after my marriage ended and three and a half since i've written anything more than a debate case with todd.   it's time for a reprise.  a reprise that's not motivated by an epic high in my life.  a reprise that's not steeped in rose-scented recounts of a blossoming relationship.   but rather, a reprise that is real.  blooms and thorns.  bliss and duress.

a reprise that's not obligated to a calendar or a sugar-coated charade.  i will however commit myself to the discipline of a dbg within each post, not because it's at the top of the page; but because it's the thread that carries me through.. and in this reprise, it's the tool that i'll use to remain vulnerable and honest with myself.. and with you.

d:  a return to candor, minus the sugar-coating.
b:  i still have it.  and love it.
g:  a strongly worded question of reckoning from an influential voice in my life