nine: hiatus happens.

… or vulnerability hangover.

Hiatus is one of your favourite words along with flabbergast and embezzle.  You enjoy the sound of them rather than their meaning - although who doesn't want to be flabbergasted in a good way?

You haven’t interacted with the word embezzle much in your life, happily.

You’ve experienced the occasional hiatus though. Living out the meaning of that word can be painful. It can make you wonder if you will ever find your way back to doing the thing that is so wrapped up in who you like to think you are. 

It’s also true that hiatuses happen.  You know this.  They have happened before. 

These are moments you brush aside saying things like: life just took over, you know?

Many words have been written about self sabotage. This is because writers are often the people who write things - and you and other writers are very familiar with self sabotage.  

You have been considering the links between self sabotage and the fact that you haven’t written here on Substack since February.  You are wondering whether it is a ploy. You have this 40@40 challenge to post 40 thoughts like this on Mondays 40 times while you're 40.  There are now just 34 Mondays until you are 41 (including today).  After today, you have 31 more posts to publish.  You have taken your choices away about skipping weeks.  You will have to post almost every Monday now.  This actually suits you.  You like to avoid the w(r)iggle room. 

There is another explanation for your hiatus here.  You haven’t stopped writing altogether. You’ve just stopped writing on here.  In fact, while you haven’t been writing here, you have finished draft 4 of your robot novel so it is now ready to share with other human eyes for some initial feedback. It’s not, then, about writing in general this time.

You think it probably has more to do with the last post you shared here on Substack.  It included the most vulnerable words you have ever shared (and you wrote songs as a teenager so you know all about vulnerable sharing).  It was about your dad’s death.  

That sort of thing can cause a hiatus and a vulnerability hangover and probably has a scientific name and explanation. 

When you have put words into the world before and, particularly when you have asked for feedback, a hiatus can follow.

The most painful hiatus you experienced was after your dad’s death when you didn’t write anything for months, and yet writing is the only way you know how to know how to process your feelings about anything - so how were you supposed to deal with that when you were already in so much pain?

Maybe this was fear’s protectionism. Maybe it thought it was helping. Maybe it was helping.

You kept taking yourself by the hand and bringing yourself back to the page and your body kept saying “no”.

There is a temporary nature of the definition of the word hiatus. It’s not over: just a pause.

One day your body will say “yes” again. It did.

This time, you appreciate being brought back to this page.  

Today might be the day you are ready to begin again.