Special Announcement/Explanation

Hello, All.
First and foremost, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and is looking forward to a Merry Christmas. There is no happier time of year than the holiday season. Whether or not you celebrate any of the upcoming holidays - Christmas, New Year's, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa - I hope that the next few months are pleasant ones for you and your family.

It's been a while since I've posted on either of my blogs, but especially this one. There is a reason for this absence, and I wanted to take a moment to explain it to everyone who reads this blog. You are all such faithful readers that I feel you deserve to know why I haven't been posting for the last several weeks.

To put it quite frankly, I was swamped with many different things and couldn't find the time to write - or, if time did present itself, I had neither the ideas nor the patience to sit down and post. I would say I've hit a writing slump lately and nothing that I draft has sounded "good enough" to post. I am very hard on myself when it comes to writing and I have a hard time posting my work if I'm not completely satisfied with it. I am my own worst critic and in the last few weeks I have been especially hard on myself. I am trying to figure out why I have a tendency to dislike my own work and I have been endeavoring to push past my own anxiety when it comes to posting something. I'm hoping that I will soon be able to publish any blog post without worrying about its content. This will take time and I will have to examine myself to overcome this anxiety, but in the meantime I will continue to post. I do still love writing and this platform allows me to do what I love; I wouldn't give that up for the world.

In addition to my recent writing slump, I have been dealing with some problems in my personal life. I have gone through a couple of  very stressful situations lately, some of which will be detailed in later blog posts, and unfortunately, I fell into low-grade depression because of these situations. While the type of depression I experienced wasn't nearly as bad as what some people go through, it created a dark cloud on the days that really hit me, and I had to push back hard to escape it. Perhaps I will write a blog post about how I did eventually get out of my depression. I have a feeling that my story could help many other people, but for now I will simply say I did escape depression and am feeling much better.

The new year is coming up next week. I may not post any pieces before then but I promise that, come 2020, I will be ready to continue posting in full force. I really do love writing here; I just need a little time to rest, a sort of pre-work break during the holidays.

I hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year and I will see you all again soon in 2020.

Your Author,
Rachel


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