IWSG, July 2021: What could make you quit?

This post was written for the Insecure Writer's Support Group monthly blogging event created  by writer Alex J Cavanaugh.  Alex's awesome co-hosts this month are Pat Garcia, Victoria Marie Lees, and Louise – Fundy Blue! Be sure to visit the site to sign up and the cohosts. 

The optional question this month is: What would make you quit writing?

I would like to think that nothing could stop my writing—forever. Writing is something I enjoy, but even more so it is a part of my soul and an expression of my heart. A therapy. A purging of stories that collect in my mind. If I’m not writing my thoughts, then I’m writing the thoughts of my characters.

 

But when you lose people important to you, then you can’t help but pause from everyday life things, from normal activities and feel the grief. 

 

Last Saturday, I went to the funeral of my next-door neighbor. She was my first neighbor as an adult, but in a different location. We were fresh and young in the mid 1970s. We were figuring out how to flip the switch from teenager to adulthood. Later, we became neighbors again for the next forty-four years. We became neighbor-friends.

 

She loved gardens and flowers as much as I do and was my garden buddy. After her death, I didn’t consider quitting my writing. Instead, I wrote in my journal about my grief and disbelief. What I did consider was not returning to my garden. Why should I continue to garden when I have no one who will talk gardening with me? I have no one who cares about my “pretty little flowers” now, but me.  

 

Of course, I have returned to my garden because she would want me to and there are nearly twenty tomato plants depending on me. Sometimes, in the middle of our losses, we might not feel like writing, gardening or doing what normally makes us happy and that is okay. It's okay to pause. Honestly, it's okay to quit if it's that important to you.

 

I've decided to write about my neighbors, soon. It's been a crazy and tragic year in the Ruralhood.

T.