I have been writing

Work in Progress; in between breaks, the coffee ones and the quiet ones

“You haven’t published something in a while,” I keep telling myself.
I’ll do it after work. After I am done preparing for this presentation. After the afters. After my head is quiet and I feel rested.

I keep writing, but nothing sparks joy. I want to call myself a perfectionist but in reality I am just overly self - critical, first line of defense.

The small talk template looks something like:

“So where have you been? / What have you been up to”
“Nothing much, just work,” has been my response so far, a lazy cover story if you ask me.

“We should catch up soon, good to see you, don’t be a stranger” ; the usual pleasantries, copy-pasted - whether typed or uttered.

But nothing much is an unfair description. And just work is far too broad. Adulting in this economy, I promise you, vitu ni mingi, and it’s never just work.

I have been busy, living - writing

I have been writing my career plans, my goals, my future. Notes from lessons, both formal and unspoken. Notes from life. Even answers i don’t have - to questions I keep being asked.

I have been writing check-ins and updates, birthday wishes and apologies for late responses and delays, kind and warm regards and congratulations. I’ve been writing myself into getting out of things, into confessions of burnout and exhaustion, into booking appointments. Writing requests for opportunities that might lead to something, and writing my way out of relationships I feel no longer serve me.

I have been writing questions that double as confessions, asking for advice on things I haven’t yet lived through. Writing myself into work, into relationships, eventually into absence and arguments. Writing too many yeses into my days, until time collapses into lists I can’t finish. Writing myself out of comfort zones, into decisions, into goodbyes I didn’t know I was drafting until the words appeared.

And in all the words, there ends up being more meaning in the unspoken. My hiatus seen as a reconstruction. My silence read as indifference. My delayed replies mistaken for ignorance. Sometimes even my words are doubted, as if they’re lies.

I have been writing. Just not here. Not in the polished way that earns a “post” or “publish”.

Writing this post wasn’t on my to-do list today.
I’m glad I made space for it, between the coffee and the tasks waiting.

I am reminded that my silence means that i am still learning how to hold the pen, so the written and unwritten can build, grow and be shared. I miss publishing and posting, but i will not force myself into “consistency” for the sake of being regular.

---

So here it is. A post, finally.
Not because I had to, but because I wanted to and also, i needed a break between to do list. I will be adding this to my list of ‘done’ even though the deadline hadn’t been confirmed.