I don’t know if I want to be a blogger anymore.

I’ve been feeling super stuck and pretty uninspired for the past couple of weeks, and if you’re still following my sporadic posts, I’m sure you’ve noticed…it’s been awhile. 

But I currently have four half-written posts just hovering on the blue background of my desktop screen which can serve as proof of my lack of inspiration. Lately, I can start writing something in my mind like I always do, but as soon as I get in front of my computer, the words only flow out of me for a paragraph or two, and then suddenly, I can’t remember why I started writing about this or that in the first place.

I think for me, this might be my version of “writer’s block.” 

I don’t typically get the kind of writer’s block that makes it impossible for me to write — because I can always start writing. I’m never at a total loss for words, or even locked out from a desire to organize my thoughts into sentences I can at least capture in my journal. But lately, I can’t find my “why” in the mix of my thoughts, words, and sentences, and that has me feeling kind of gloomy.

Today, on my morning hike, I was trying to process the reasons I might be in this dumpy mood, and as I walked passed a row of vines, I spotted a familiar feeling in what I saw. The vines in one single row had completely lost all of their leaves. And the branches of the vines looked brittle and kind of dormant — unlike the two rows on either side of this row. Those two rows of vines still had dark orange and autumn-brown leaves clinging to the outstretched arms that extended well beyond my view. 

But the middle row was bare and quiet — which is how I feel inside lately. 

I’m not in a pitiful or depressed mood, but, I think I’m just experiencing a transition. I don’t really like the feeling of being “in-between seasons” in my life, but even nature doesn’t get to choose the transitions. They just happen on their own, and everything in nature simply yields to the events that make one season end so another season can begin.

I’ve always related to the idea of the seasons of life falling into a certain kind of order, and it feels rational to sort my thoughts this way. I’m definitely at the end of one very long season of my real-life — wedding season. I have one more bride and groom to watch get married this year, and then, everything about that part of my life is coming to an end.

And maybe the reason that feels so heavy to me this year is because I don’t feel inspired or hopeful about another wedding season growing into my future. I know I’m burned out — everyone who works in the Wine Country wedding industry is by this time of the year. And after doing this “side hustle” for four full seasons now, I can assure you that my feelings are probably pretty normal.

But there’s something new in the mix of this ending because I don’t feel the recoil of relief that I’ve felt in the past that so far, has left me spring-loaded for doing this job all over again when the next wedding season rolls back around. I’m sure I’ll find something in me once I rest and recover during the off-season, and I do have weddings I’ve committed to working next season marked up on my calendar already. So I know I’m going to have to rally!

It’s just that this dead and “ending feeling” in my being feels more significant to me right now than it has before. I feel like something inside of me is setting off a signal that I’m supposed to move on to the next thing in my life, but I feel like I’m totally stuck between two inspired vines but I have nothing left to cling to. I know that sounds dramatic, and it isn’t supposed to! But there is a barrenness in my being right now because I don’t know exactly what will give me the life of my purpose once the next season is ready to take shape in me.

There have been seasons of my life where I’ve been so certain about who I am as a writer, and then there have been seasons where I’ve been more willing to stay in a place of wonder. But right now, I feel lost between the wonder and the certainty, and that feels…strange.

I’ve never wanted this blog to become something I forced or manipulated in any way. I’ve just wanted it to be a place where I can deposit and then share my authentic thoughts and musings with others. And I’ve gone out of my way to never measure anything about my blog or my readership because, for me, that just feels like a good way to mess things up in my mind! But being “in-between” is a feeling I don’t love because right now, it’s not a hopeful space to be in, and I think I suspect the answer to what’s next for me lies in the parts of my process I don’t want to consider…

Anyway. 

It gets dark so early now and the days feel so short… And even though I prefer the way the days wrap up in the spring and summer, I’m going to give myself this declared moment of permission to fully transition. I don’t know how long this cross-over in my spirit will take, but I know I can count on one thing;

A new season always follows the end of an old one.

I’ll just find my hope in that for now…