It’s 2018 and clearly my intention to start blogging went bust. I have so many ideas that filter through my brain, but they seem to come when I’m driving or otherwise engaged. Once back home, I find that I don’t sit down and write. I mean I write—for my clients—but not for me.

When my mother passed away unexpectedly a few months back, I had all sorts of weighty ideas about love and loss that I thought I would share with the world. I felt (and still feel) like I’m living on the same old solid ground, but then I imagine myself opening the front door to walk outside and…surprise! I now live in a high rise way up in the sky and the bottom has dropped out beneath me and I’m free-falling. It’s like someone pulled the proverbial rug out from underneath me and I’m left with a sinking feeling in my gut. I realize that the landscape of my life has changed and it will never be the same. So long solid footing. My mother, my rock, is gone.

I’ve pondered why I haven’t (before now) shared any of my thoughts on this profound sadness. Some of my best personal work has come from a place of pain. What’s up with my reluctance? Pen to paper has always been the salve that soothes me. I could spill my guts to the page and feel better, or at least write something meaningful. Why not now?

Eventually it dawned on me: I feel a reluctance to write because there are times I simply don’t want to feel. I can’t bear the pain. My younger self was bold and brash and strong. She’d forge ahead with youthful enthusiasm and think, come what may. The brilliant and broad approach that guided my actions has dimmed to a dull narrow ray. The awareness of life’s challenges, especially once I passed the age of forty, make it hard for me to blithely tempt fate. And so I drive on. I help my son with his homework. I run errands and think of all the things I could write but don’t. Except today.