I became a Blogger in July while on maternity leave from my position as Editor and Reporter for The Standard, weekly community newspaper.
Prior to my return on a freelance basis in September, I jumped on the Blog train as a lead to ease my way back into a world that was once so familiar and that consumed all of my energy, drive and priority.
The dreaded blank page hung like a dark cloud over my head, looming around me for months. I filled it with words reflecting my fear of that exact writer's "white page" and struggled with having lost myself, not sure who I would be returning to work as, but knowing that my not returning would be a serious cop out.
Write what you know. Once I started filling the page, post after post flowed through me and went viral as I unleashed the new me and released a new confidence that shoved me back out into the field. And that, oh so familiar, rush of gratification when I met my first deadline.
Exactly one week back, the day we put the paper to bed, it all came crashing down hard. My anxieties clogged my ability to cope with the vulnerability I felt while my son experienced a frightening choking incident, I went back to work, he began daycare and I was feeling the rash of harassment by co-workers that I had hoped seized over the year I was off. All of this in one week pumbled me and a new struggle ensued. Panic attacks ignited, and with them, a new fear - Extreme hopelessness.
It wasn't soon after, having never skipped a beat in the eyes of my life's distant bystanders, that a glimpse of hope pulled me from rock bottom and I was back to taking on, defeating and some days continuing to lose to, the challenges of becoming a Working Mother.
•••
A-Ha. Tonight, the desire to explore other writing opportunities has kept me up way past my bedtime. I have been online for hours, researching magazines and their editorial contacts and submitting my works. This late-night affair with the pursuit of my ultimate goal to become the publisher and editor of my own magazine has me quietly creeping to the kitchen to boil the kettle for another cup of tea.
Holy shit. In this exact moment, right now, all of the things in my life leading up to what I've just realized I want to do with it flash before me.
Life does unfold as it should. Thanks Max.
23.10.12
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