Create or Stagnate

It’s been a while since I last posted.  In fact, it has been almost exactly five months.  Now due to popular demand, and a shift in my own thinking, I have decided to try my hand at blogging again. 

Why, you may ask, did I stop blogging?  Was it because nothing interesting was happening down here in the Gump?  Absolutely not!  The opposite is true.  In the five months since I last posted, Emmett has gone through general management training at Baumhower’s Restaurant and since taken over his own store (the Downtown Montgomery location). The girls are now in a good, local technical high school and doing fantastically.  In July, Kiera, Kylie and my nephew Fletcher and I drove from Alabama to Massachusetts (and back!) to visit family and friends.  We have picked up two new family members:  Bella Lovato-Moore our sweet Rat Terrier who we adopted from our dear friend Myra who passed away suddenly this summer and Ms. Mocha Moore, our half-faced kitten (14 weeks as of this writing) who was found wandering the mean streets of Montgomery.  As you can see, I did not stop blogging because there was nothing of interest to report on.

Did I stop because I was too busy?  No.  Although I do have plenty to do, there are hours every day where I don’t have any plans and end up catching up on reading, cleaning, organizing, job hunting, working out… well you get the picture.  I have never been less busy.  I am enjoying my non-stressed out life.  I prayed for a long time for a break and now I have it.  So, I am not too busy to write.

The truth is that I got mad.  I got hurt.  I got scared.  I let these negative feelings get in the way of my creativity.  It took me a while to identify why I wanted to anything else rather than write… and I do mean anything (shampooing rugs, weeding, watching Honey Boo Boo, etc.).  Finally, though, I pinpointed what it was that gave me the biggest case of writer’s block in history.

The last blog that I posted about was Love, Gaming and Saving.  In general, I got nice comments on the post (which of course anyone would like to hear), but then I got an “off the record” comment from someone (who shall remain nameless) saying how “mortified” he was that I was making excuses for my husband’s bad behavior of gaming.  He felt that I was enabling Emmett’s gaming and not being truthful with myself about how I felt.  This reader, I know, is not the only one that felt that way.  He just happened to be the only one who actually said something.

I could go into all the reasons why I “enable” my husband’s gaming but I don’t think any minds would be changed anyway.  If you want to know why, go back and read Love, Gaming and Saving.  Instead, I am choosing to press on and write about what interests me; my observations, my thoughts and my opinions.  I am going to not let someone’s disapproval keep me from pursuing what makes me happy.  I am going to choose creativity over stagnation.

In retrospect, what I should have done is shut out the negativity.  I could have used my emotions to create instead of stagnate.  But, the truth is, I was afraid that by putting myself “out there” in such a public way, I was inviting negative criticism about my life, my writing “talent”, my choices.

Hearing criticism is always hard and never pleasant.  I can’t think of anyone who relishes hearing disapproval.  People react in different ways to criticism. Some people get mad, make a public scene and drag everyone into their drama.  There are other people who shut down their creativity and let the outside voices rule their inner goddess (to steal a phrase from Fifty Shades of Grey) and then there are others who take disappointment, sadness, depression, disapproval, etc. and create.  Think of all of those famous painters who did not let the naysayers win.  Imagine if they had?  We might never have had Degas, Monet and Renoir to enjoy. When the French Impressionist movement first began in the late 1800’s, they were highly criticized for their style. The artists pursued their individualism and eventually the misunderstood Impressionists were embraced by the world.   

Had they let popular convention dictate their actions and stifle their creativity, we would never have heard the words of magnificent women writers such as Austen, Eliot, and the Brontë sisters.  No Heathcliff?  No Mr. Darcy?  What a duller, less romantic world we would live in.  I am by no means comparing myself to those great artists; merely, I am noting the actions of those who I admire so much and hoping to follow, humbly, in their footsteps… fearlessly.