New Beginnings

I know I’m guilty of starting these off by saying how difficult life has been, distracting me from my musings and thus writing. However, when I say difficult this time around, it is no mere wolf-cry.

Life has been uncharacteristically extraneous.

If it were myself alone feeling this constriction, then I would not categorise it as such. It’s the plethora of others whom are struggling, too, which support my claims that life has just been down right stressful beyond any explanation other than something greater, bigger must be at work within the universe causing these pangs to contract and increase the tension to newer levels of difficulty.

Ashamedly, it’s been far too long since I posted anything. For this, I apologise.

In the past, regardless of whatever curve balls Life threw at me, I kept going, I kept writing.

Now, I have been writing some in this interlude. I did warn there might be a bit of hiatus for a while. Not to brag, but rather to remind myself, I’ve been focusing on a new project whilst two others unexpectedly came up: helping with a Purim spiel for shul and a d’rash for my rabbi. (The latter has me on this Kabbalah and Cosmology kick right now, so I may share some of that in future posts.)

Then there are the additional distractions which keep my attention elsewhere, all of which cause me to neglect this website. Again, I apologise.

I don’t know why I am compelled to share my regrets except maybe since I desire to do this full-time, I want to be honest with how it’s still a struggle I constantly wrestle with of how to devote my time to both Life and writing.

And therein lies my problem: writing isn’t my life.

Not really. If it were, then the aforementioned would not be an issue.

It hurts to confess that. Deeply, truly, excruciatingly. I knew it was coming, though, after realising that maybe the problem was me, not Life.

Thus, as I woke this morning, my first thought was, literally, “I have nothing to stress over anymore. What am I going to do with my time?”

I cannot tell you how relieved I felt, of course. Though, I genuinely was searching for something to do, and that’s when I remembered this, writing, and how desperately I’ve missed it.

Last Friday was Rosh Chodesh Nisan, which is the first month of the year traditionally, putting aside Rosh Hashanah. It is the month we were delivered out of Egypt and began our new lives of freedom. Soon, we will be celebrating Pesach [Passover], and it is a time of spiritual awakening and rebirth. Thus, on Shabbas my rebbetzin spoke about new beginnings and asked us to search ourselves for that one thing which we needed most to have a new beginning.

For me, there were 3 things which came to mind, but writing was at the apex of my mind. Unlike the other 2, writing is something I can do now without delay.

And so that is what I am going to do. I am going to write.

I’m going to start over, clean slate, and begin anew as my rebbetzin always says. I’m not going to guilt trip myself for not writing into inevitably not writing anything at all. I’m going to devote more of my time to writing, and cherish my lack of distractions [other projects].

For this website, I’m setting the goal of posting at least twice a week with my first objective of reviewing all those books I’ve neglected to reflect on since…last summer? Sure, you could follow me on Goodreads, but I don’t review anything there. Let’s see…if my last “What’s on my Shelf” was for the months of May and June, then that’s roughly nine months of books to review, which is about 30 books.

Oy vey.

But I can do this! We can do this! Start small and you will finish big.

Thank you all again for your patience with me. I’m learning and growing as much as the next person. We all have to find our path towards our dream, it’s just no one ever tells you how many detours there are along the way (except George MacDonald, but he’s a rarity).

Here’s to new beginnings! Let’s see what the future unfolds.