Writer's Block? Not me...

I never believed that writer's block existed. Well, perhaps not quite so literally. The idea seemed more of an excuse to avoid the daily routine of pounding a keyboard. Or lightly tapping a pad, except when the damn spell checker decides that surely you don't really mean what you do mean and replaces it with a word from some foreign language (I'd add a smiley face there, but instead figured shoot let's spare all the indignity of it).

Then in December 2009 the silent invader that stalks each if us, snatched away the life of an uncle. Not totally unexpected, but brutal in its reality. Seven months later it returned for my mother-in-law. She was one of the special people whose presence lit a room. I wrote, but with weight of her loss sitting on my shoulder.

Another seven months passed, and my favorite uncle died unexpectedly. The keyboard did not function properly after that. As if tapping keys produced blanks.

Then came 2012. Both parents, one first cousin, and a very dear friend by the beginning of December.

As it was, during the start of that year, I felt as if each loss had closed a door and I could not locate the key. Behind the doors, lay the seeds I used to plant and fertilize into a story, or article.

As 2012 blazed its agony through my life, the doors began slamming as if wind blown. I found a handful of keys, but none fit any lock.


Finally, I came to terms with the fact that writer's block is real. It is the cause I never understood. Some emotional trauma, or inner turmoil that consumes thoughts condensing them into a search for one simple answer: why?