I’m staring at a blank page.

I’ve told my writing group I thought I’d make a commitment to post on my blog after we meet every two weeks. It’s been a while since I’ve seen them. We try.

Although, as you can see, my blog is called Be Kinder Than Necessary, the posts are hit and miss, and disjointed. When I get around to writing something, I post it.

And here I sit.

I was trying to write a memoir of a failed relationship. Gathering snippets from my journals and building a narrative around them. I haven’t gotten to that in a while either. A subsidiary of Project Write Now, an organization that runs groups for writers of all ages, is doing a book incubator over the course of a year. I have thought about applying to get that memoir done. They really want it to be a new project, so I think I don’t qualify. They ask for a writing commitment of 14 hours a week. It seems both doable and astronomical. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to do the application. The cost is an issue for me as well. They are offering scholarships, though.

I haven’t even written in a journal for quite some time. Writing is a great release for me. I recommend it to my clients all the time. I even have a new journal. I recently went on a trip out west. We did a whirlwind tour of some of the most barren and beautiful landscapes in four states! The trip was in honor of what would have been my deceased son’s 30^th birthday. He’s gone 7 years now. He died by suicide. I still have so much guilt around that event.I meant to bring the journal with me, and didn’t. I was totally unplugged for the trip, having forgotten my phone at home. Although my daughter and granddaughter both had phones and laptops with them; and, I tried to log in to my FaceBook and Google accounts, I couldn’t. The devices weren’t “recognized” and, of course, texts to confirm it was indeed me, were sent to my phone, which was thousands of miles away.

Being unplugged wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. It meant I was completely off from work, out of touch with clients. I had a book with me. So I read in the quiet times, which was nice. On the other hand, being with family, day in and day out, for 8 days was a challenge. Our temperaments are different, sometimes opposed. The shared, emotional, heart-to-hearts I was hoping for didn’t happen. We hit a rough spot about 2/3 of the way through the trip, on my son’s birthday,  after which I didn’t sleep, and I asked my daughter to drop me off at the airport and I would figure out a way to change my flight. I wanted to go home. We muddled through, and the trip continued. I thought leaving would ultimately make things worse rather than better.

I was feeling invisible, the fifth wheel. Sleeping on a pull-out sofabed didn’t help, especially after a 3-hour kayaking tour. I was hurting. Closing it up and sleeping on the sofa was much more comfortable. I’m not in the best of shape – overweight and sedentary – with fibromyalgia pain. While the accommodations were beautiful for the 3 nights we spent in Las Vegas, a one-bedroom apartment, I thought we were going to have separate rooms; and, I would be sleeping in a bed. When I tried to discuss this with my daughter, it didn’t go well. It was too late to do anything about it at that point anyway. Although, I suppose they could have given me the bed.

I didn’t ask.