I want to write about watching my cat die last week, but every time I try a sense of fatigue overwhelms me. I’ve expended a lot of energy lately on making my room a lovely place to be, a space that invites me to relax and create. I’ve washed clothes and moved furniture. Energy is there. It’s just not available for talking about death.

This feeling started at the end of October, on my brother’s birthday, a day when I miss him in an especially heartbreaking way. This time around I had a new experience, with something transcendent and almost happy about it, and I wanted to hop right on here and share it with the world. But I tried and I couldn’t do it. Just the thought of typing words about him made me sleepy.

After that, all kinds of things started happening. I amazed myself with my ability to cope, even excel. But when I tried to write about my emotional and spiritual discoveries, it felt like I was typing an essay for a college application. Forced, inauthentic, ultimately dated. Dead prose. Nothing to do but drop the subject and try to be funny.

So this is one of those awful why-I-haven’t-posted posts. On top of that, it’s one of those boring well-what-can-I-say posts. Just in time for the holidays (that’s my favorite phrase these days!), I find myself capable and emotionally numb. The good stuff won’t come unless I have a nice long cry, and I don’t dare let that happen, not when there is bureaucracy waiting for me the next morning. If I’m lucky, some stranger on the street will stab me with a pin when I’m not looking and I’ll end up uncorked all over the sidewalk. And then things will get REAL. All for you.