It’s the next-to-last day of Blaugust, and I suppose I should talk about what I learned this go-round with it. That I should talk about what things started to become clear to me as the month went on. It really feels like this month blew by, didn’t it? Either way, some things did stick out, at least for me. The biggest thing, by far was that I can in fact, still write, that I have not totally lost my fastball yet. Or that the more I write, the easier it becomes to write. Because for a while there, back before this month, I wasn’t coming up with anything. No thoughts, no ideas, just TV static. I re-learned that instead of waiting on the perfect idea to strike, that I just need to get shots up, just need to write. The ideas will come, just put pen to paper, exercise your brain. I made a list of topics for this month, and barely used it, partly because I wasn’t feeling most of those ideas at the time, and partly because I just found it easier to write the more I actually did the act of writing. I remembered why I enjoy writing in the first place. It’s a way for me to express myself, to give myself an outlet for all the thoughts I do have. I don’t have to write the next great think-piece, I just need to write. It made me happy to see myself put words on a page again, finally get the neurons firing like they should. Another thing was that I had forgotten how much I enjoy reading other people’s work, how much I enjoy reading their perspectives. I get way too stuck in my own head way too often, get used to only seeing and hearing my own perspective on whatever topic. Making myself pick and read posts to read this month has helped with seeing things through others’ eyes again, getting out of my own head for a change, and opening up ideas for posts. Have I used all of those ideas? No, but, it is something. At least I’m reading something again, instead of spending all day in my own head, nuking my three remaining brain cells on a phone. To me, writing is a very lonely process, as I don’t bounce post ideas off people, I do all my writing where no one in my family can see, it’s private to me. And with my line of work, it’s clinical, it’s emotionless, it’s dispatch banners, documentation, and notation, not things where I vent about my day, where I make my feelings known, it’s work. So reading other people’s writing kind of breaks that wall down a little, makes the process feel a little less lonely. Seeing that people have equally as real struggles they vent about, things they gush over, all of that makes me feel less alone as a writer and a person. After last Blaugust, I tunneled, got way too busy with way too many things. House repairs, projects, work, that writing, and even reading in general, that I just completely fell off. This year I’ve made myself take time to read articles, try to stay off this damned phone when I’m not writing, and again, it’s helping get my brain actually working. I’d like to keep that up post-Blaugust, and while I can’t guarantee it, I want to at least try. It’s been a rough time since the start of last year, not just because of…everything, but because of personal stuff too. Losing my dog last year killed a lot of my motivation, I stopped streaming, stopped writing, stopped taking any care of myself. Going more and more grey by the year didn’t help, seeing more and more family pass away didn’t help. Writing used to be my outlet, and without my dog, it didn’t feel like it was worth doing. Add in the state of the world, more and more nonsense at work I get piled onto me, it snuffed out a lot of motivation. Just making myself do something, making myself write when I didn’t want to made it a lot easier. And I think that’s the third major thing I learned. Motivation doesn’t just strike at once, it’s built from doing things even when you don’t want to. There were days I didn’t want to get out of bed, let alone write, but I made myself do it. I had to relearn my motivation, relearn that this is taking care of myself, writing my thoughts, my feelings, my opinions, that’s self-care, like making myself jump into the shower when I don’t necessarily want to. This is taking care of my mind, letting me stretch those muscles I don’t use as much as I ideally would like to most days. Short answer to all of what I just said is to find your reason, and go do it. Mine was to prove I still can write, to put down words on a page regardless of if they were “good enough” to meet some arbitrary standard. Because this is my outlet, my way to express myself, this is me with all the warts and scars and mess. Proving myself to myself was my motivation, that all the nightmares of the past couple years haven’t totally killed my desire to create. And I think that’s the desire is starting to hold a flame like it used to, and I want to keep fostering that flame.