Control : Shift



I use my computer keyboard a lot. I have spent many hours typing for work, as a writer, as a homeschool mom and more. (Shout out to my high school Typing teacher for insisting we learn how to type by touch and all those drills.) With all the multiple hours of typing, I have figured out that ergonomic keyboards are my friend, and so is the control shift key.

If you don't know about the magical CONTROL key, it holds unimaginable potential in helping you access computer program shortcuts and commands. If you spend any amount of time on a keyboard, then you definitely want to save this site about keyboard shortcuts for future reference.

As much as I enjoy a good keyboard shortcut, the truth is that there are often no shortcuts in my personal life and development.

There have been many times over the past two years that I have yearned for an easy way out of the turmoil, trouble and struggle that I have walked through. It's no exaggeration for me to say that this period of my life has been the most devastating and challenging times that has shaken so many things I've known and believed in to the very core.

And I've written and blogged about none of it. As I scroll through my poor and neglected blog, I realize that I have not written much of anything of substance in these last two years. My last blog post written last February was a "puff piece" to satisfy the agreements of getting some free swag. I churned that one out by sheer grit.

It's curious that when I am going through a time of the intense self-reflection and internal struggle, I find that I am too paralyzed to write. Rather than finding catharsis in pouring out my thoughts on the page, I find that I want to hold everything in and everything close.

Maybe it's because this Control:Shift of my life has been too painful. Too raw. Too close. Too confusing. Too...everything. I find that I don't want to merely vomit up random thoughts and fleeting emotions. The processing that I have been doing and am still doing makes it difficult to sit in front of a keyboard.

But I miss it.

I am still not sure what I have to say if I don't say the things that I am wrestling with the most. Because honestly, what else is there to talk about? And while I know that is not entirely true, I think it's more that everything else feels trivial and trite.

But staying silent doesn't feel right. I miss the process of writing. I miss the therapy and artistry of it all. And I'm missing out on memorializing some of the daily things that are happening (baby goats born!) and huge undertakings (going on the road for a month this past summer).

So, I'm recommitting to writing more often. I'm not sure what I'll have to say or how far I can go in sharing. But it's time.

I'm pressing Control:Shift and starting afresh.

Tomorrow I will share a post that I almost finished last May about attending a U2 concert. Somehow even finding the resolve to finish that one off escaped me then. But thankfully, almost five months later, I was able to do it.

Baby steps, right?

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