Today’s Shout Into the Void (AKA “the Pandemic Blues”)

Folks, when I don’t know what to say, I turn to “shouting into the void.” This reminds me that even if my words are not understood, much less heard, they still have value.

That seems paradoxical, doesn’t it? (Maybe it is.)

It can be hard to reach a certain age, as a woman. People ignore you. They look right past you. They don’t see you.

But I am here, whether they see me or not. I’m here, and doing what I can, whether anyone else understands it, or not. I’m able to exert my influence — such as it is — on this blog, and point out that every life has value and worth.

I don’t know if you’re like me, and sometimes feel invisible. (Or at best, visible, ignorable, and misunderstood.) But I do know that the stories I write best are the ones where folks who’ve always felt like misfits find their homes and families (not necessarily their families of birth, either; these are their families of the heart).

The heroes and heroines I’ve come up with often felt ignorable, isolated, looked past, misunderstood, and frustrated.

Maybe it’s just this lengthy pandemic, but I’m tired of being misunderstood, ignored, looked past, and frustrated.

One of my best friends told me lately that she believes I should remember that writing is fun, and enjoy what I’m doing. Don’t stress so much about low word-counts. Don’t worry so much that my energy — which has been sapped by the lengthy pandemic, among other things — isn’t able to be consistently applied to writing, either.

Her message was very simple: Do what you can, as you can. And don’t forget who you are.

She also went on to point out that my illnesses — fibromyalgia among them — do not define me. They may limit me, at times. But they are not the sum total of all I am, much less all that I will ever be.

At any rate, my hope is that my blogging does some good for someone, somewhere, even if is to point out that they, alone, aren’t the only person in the world who’s struggling.

Thus concludes today’s shout into the void.