...silent treatment...

I've been ignoring you.

I've been hearing the siren call of the blank page, and turning my back on it.

I have found it hard to just sit down and write.

My head is full of words.  They swirl about endlessly, making me clumsy during the day and sleepless through the night.  None of them fit to print.  None of them safe to say.  

I have woken up, almost daily for the last month, thinking this is the day I'll dive back in...straight into the deep end...dark and murky and unexplored...chock full of monsters and fangs.  And every day, I have come up with excuses.  Every day, I have kept myself "busy" to avoid sitting in silence and writing it out.

There are, I think, people who have a gift for expression.  For putting all the right words in the right order at the right time...and by doing so, drawing the poison from the sting.

But I worry, knowing myself, that my words will only irritate the wound more...stirring up old fears and new ones...inviting the past into the present.  I worry that once untapped, the words won't ever go back into the nice, tidy boxes I stuffed them into in the first place. 

I worry that what feels like a tidal surge in my life will completely overwhelm me if I start to really think about any of it.

And I worry that I won't much like what I have to say.  That my anger and my fear will be stronger than my compassion and grace.

So I keep busy.