Oh hi. You're still here? Cool.

Yeah, I'm still alive and online.

The problem with long absences from writing on here is that, eventually, I do feel like writing again... but it then feels like the post should be amazing. And should cover all the reasons I've not had time to write, or why I haven't felt like it. And I think, well, I can afford to leave it for a couple of days, it's not like anything exciting happened to me today that I need to write about. And that happens several days in a row. And with each week that passes, the need to make the post worthy of the wait increases.

At the end, I can't even face being reminded of writing. I actively avoided Blogger - even reading others' contributions to the Quote Book and the VQB - for about six weeks at my lowest point. It's not the first time I've had difficulty even facing the things I used to enjoy doing.

At the end, a struggle to make myself do it, whatever it is, always comes down to the same pattern of inaction, with the same point of resolution for me.

I'll wake up one morning and something will be different - maybe waking up to sunshine feels like spring and starting over, maybe waking up to a relatively rested and clear mind rather than the usual lead fog makes the difference; ultimately, a similar moment follows.

The usual thoughts when avoiding - why can't I do this? why don't you just do it now? you should be able to do this well! sort it out!
settle down into I think I'll do this. What the hell. And so I do.

I wish I had an easy flip-switch for that moment of resolution. It causes a brief period of blinding optimism where I feel instinctively that I can do anything I attempt, if I just make a start on it right now. If I do everything with the same efficiency that this moment gives me, I will become the version of me I always pictured I should be.

That feeling tends to drain away slowly over the course of a day or two of being slapped repeatedly in the face by reality. I can't learn in a week what I've been looking over for months. I can't conquer the world. I can't be an unrealistic ideal.

It's almost enough to make me hate the transient resolution. The optimism is like a lot of attractive things - it's shiny and makes you feel good to be in its presence, but ultimately it has an undesirably short lifespan.

So what now? Do I give up? Stop writing, stop having interests, stop having a personality with its own desires and fears?

Well... probably not. If nothing else, the fact that I keep having this moment of clarity reassures me that the things that have been bothering me often do eventually work themselves out.