Blocked

Suck it up buttercup, I tell myself. You need to write, sit down and write it already. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or not, but you need to get over whatever this block is.

But I don’t want to. I’ve got nothing to write about, everything has been boring.

I don’t care. Just write.

Just write.

So I sit down and I just write and it’s not very good. And I poke at it and prod it and it’s still no good. I turn away, disheartened, and something inside screams that I need to keep writing and work through this block.

I’ve got all sorts of good ideas you see, but I pitched to a parenting magazine today and in the event of them wanting something from me, a minuscule chance, I don’t want to have used any good material.

Stupid, I know.

***

The baby turns into a toddler with the arriving of his birthday. He stands on his own two feet and steadily makes his way around the furniture. He pulls a toy table over to the kitchen gate and climbs on it. For a moment, he hangs in the balance, tall enough now to topple over and land on the kitchen floor.

Another moment passes and I’ve caught him, whisked him up into the air, alternately growling and cuddling him; my heart beating a little faster as I run through the what-ifs.

He screams as I put the table away. I’m not prepared for him to be climbing baby gates yet.

Instead, he climbs onto the coffee table and sits there, looking pleased with himself, bouncing and clapping.

At least the coffee table doesn’t wobble precariously.

***

The toddler turns into a preschooler, one who argues and has conversations with me, all in the same breath. She asks when we can go to school and when we can go and play on the slide. She wants to have a birthday every day and she sighs, visibly disappointed when I tell her that today is not a birthday.

She walks away in a huff, flipping her hair as she goes and I can almost see the shadow of a teenager hanging over her head, flouncing out and exclaiming that I’m ruining her life forever.

Not forever sweetheart. Just right now.

***

Everything is changing, slowly but surely.

Proof that life moves on, regardless.

It’s just past seven months since Nan died and inside, I can feel it, a ball of grief, hardened and immobile. If I ignore it, it doesn’t bother me, but poking it threatens to bring this whole house of cards toppling down on my head.

I wished I could ring her today, as my children screamed around me and the world spun while I reminded myself to breath. As I felt that familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach, that feeling of fear and dread and not knowing.

I wanted her here and there was nothing I could do about it.

So I did what I always do.

I ignored it.

I put the baby to bed, I cleaned out the horses water, I taught the puppy to sit. I fed the horses an extra slice of hay and I aimlessly clicked around the Internet. My son slept on and my daughter threw herself across my lap as I typed, watching the way my hands moved across the keys.

I breathed deep.

And I ignored it.

That’s probably not the best way to be dealing with the grief.