For those of you who know me, you already know that I’ve been working on a 2nd advanced degree. This entailed doing an on-the-job internship while also holding (and creating from the ground up) a new position. I’m not bragging. In fact, I think I’m just now realizing, as I ascend from the depths of exhaustion, that I was holding on by a thread. It was a hard year. I gave it my all, as I always do, and I did a good job. But then summer break hit, and I went numb for a few weeks. And then I just stayed submerged, in the quiet. I did very little…

I’m still not sure if I’m ever coming back to this place. Sometimes I feel a pull, but it’s hard to say if that pull is a legitimate desire to write or a feeling that I should…because someone else believes that. I know it worries my husband when I give up writing. He sees it as a sign of something ominous. A mental shift that will not only impact me…but him, as well. Sometimes, I want to write. A short story. A poem. A journal entry. But then I pick up the pen or open my laptop, and I feel my throat close up and my heart rate increase. So…