Last week I took a week off from writing here on BBOP.
By day three I felt the guilt rising. The feeling that I was betraying myself. The feeling that I had just blown up with a grenade the stride that I had spent the last 367 days creating.
Yes, I felt all those things.
I also felt empty and incapable of spinning another top, stacking another plate, or adding another thing to my list.
The end-of-the-year projects at work. The emotions that came with changes coming in the new school year. The happy-sad feeling that my Nala was graduating high school and going off to college.
Then it was family who were leaving on Thursday morning and those who were coming Thursday evening, the baccalaureate for the seniors, the fear of sleeping arrangements, making sure everyone had what they needed.
I couldn’t write even if I wanted to.
But something interesting happened.
The morning of my birthday, I woke up very early with a pressing scene that had to be written for my new book about a woman named Evelyn.
It took me an hour to write two paragraphs.
I had to stop and research facts to make sure I wasn’t betraying the truth. Though my characters are made up, the events surrounding them are real.
For the rest of that day I walked around work lost in the scene I had created. Thinking about all the ways I could tweak it and deepen it. Thinking about dialogue. Motivation. Memory. Pain.
Writing truly does light something in me.
Even when I’m gone from the blog, writing is never really gone from me.
And that is what I am learning.
Sometimes we think if we stop producing for a moment, we are losing ourselves. Like consistency is the only proof that something matters to us.
But creativity is not always loud.
Sometimes it rests underground for a moment.
Still alive and breathing.
Still growing.
Still waiting.
I stepped away for a week.
But the writer in me never left.
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Share it with someone who might need it, too. Whether it’s a quiet encouragement or a new way of seeing things, these reflections are meant to be passed along.
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Martina Griffin is a Catholic convert, writer, wife, and mother of four. She writes about faith, motherhood, beauty, books, and the quiet ache of transformation. A lover of popcorn, deep questions, and old classics, she shares her heart at Big Bowl of Popcorn—one post at a time. Instagram | Facebook | Email Me |
From Big Bowl of Popcorn
Finding Alberta
A novel about love, grief, and what is remembered and misunderstood.
Thank you for supporting my writing.
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