Speed Bumps

Of course, this is the first Wednesday of the month and time for another edition of the Insecure Writers Support Group. Except I’ve hit a speed pump.

Writing has become harder than it was mostly due to the changes in my life.

I am still writing every day but it is mostly in journal form. My writing is, for the most part, an outpouring of emotions onto the page. Any type of writing that involves any higher level thinking is simply not possible right now.

I have several projects that I want to work on but I cannot even take them out. Ideas flow through my head, if I am proactive I write them down. Mostly I’m not and then the idea is gone.

And I have to tell myself everything will be okay. This slow time in my life is only a season and season’s change.

It’s a speed pump.

Life is bumpy. We never know what is lying ahead.

When encountering a speed pump, whether it is on the road or in life there are a couple of things that need to happen.

First, you have to see and accept that it is there. When you are driving this happens pretty automatically. In life, acceptance is often the first step in dealing with anything.

Next, you must slow down. There are consequences if you don’t. Scraping the bottom of your car as you cringe just knowing that you’ve damaged something when you go too fast over one. When a speed bump happens to you in life, slowing down is important too. If you go too fast, you can forget to feel which can lead to a damaging crash later.

Third, in slowing down for a speed pump, you must get your car all the way through before you can accelerate again. The same is true in real life. It takes time to deal with the event. Even though it can seem like you are on the road to recovery, derailment can still happen if you go too fast.

Finally, you are through and you begin to pick up speed. Life seems to happen a million miles an hour. Even though we would like it to slow down, as we settle into our new routine and life goes back to normal and the speed picks up.

We must make the conscious decision to take in the lessons learned in the speed bump. We must take the time to see and enjoy the life that we have before something happens and it changes.

I am still writing, slowly, painfully but I am still putting words down. For me, this is to keep my habit going when all I want to do is crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.

I am learning to be okay with this. My goals and my stories will still be there when I can finally speed up again.