#279:Nothing to say
I can’t write.
I’m blocked.
I go to write and I falter.
I can’t do it.
I start writing and think; “I’ve been here before”,“you’re repeating yourself’, “this isn’t new”, “this isn’t you”
I can’t finish what I’m writing.
I don’t want to.
I have always written to find meaning and answers.
But I’m not looking for answers anymore.
I’ve been chasing feathers in the wind for years. I’ve been looking for answers forever.
Always searching, pulling threads. Investigating life to find it’s answer. Looking for “aha!”
Each time I cross a new threshold or experience - I think “aha this is it!” “After this, I’ll be there”. “After this, I’ll be enlightened.” “After this, I’ll have finally arrived.”
I’ve been fixated on a spiritual, emotional and mental destination. Even when I wrote a whole book about mental health and learned that it was all a process and a journey - I still thought.. “I’ll arrive when…”
All of my writing has been about this journey. In many ways, the writing has been the journey itself - an active exploration - a public catharsis. The moments and experiences I’ve documented, I’ve always strived to make a meaning of them.
Now, I don’t want to write in the same way.
My life doesn’t feel less important to write about. It’s more that life is SO important and SO precious that I don’t want to analyse and figure it out all the time.
What I want to do is live fully, ideally with others. Feel my feelings, then let them go. Practice this every day. Fail every day. Begin again every day.
It’s nearly a decade since I started this newsletter and this is the first time I’ve really wondered. Do I need to write this?
The honest response that rises in my chest with a sharp inhale; “no I don’t.”
I feel an ending. A death. I feel something dissolving in me.
I’m reaching a new horizon and I don’t know what lies beyond it. I know I’ve been walking towards it for a long time. Something about my identity, something about who I am, how I see or define myself.
I know that I’m walking towards a place that is different to the one I have been in. A different me.
It scares me. Am I a poet or monk on the other side of this horizon? Am I a born again entrepreneur?
When I began writing this, I was 24 living in a flat in London, single with not a drop of savings. Living pay cheque to pay cheque wondering how I’d tell the lads I don’t want to go out and drink like a dog on Saturday night. Wrapped in panic and anxiety, desperately searching to prove myself and seeking external validation that told me “this is who you are, you are worthy”.
I was searching for myself. This newsletter was me discovering myself, in public.
I’ve loved it. This newsletter has been therapy. I’ve written newsletters and cried. I’ve been vulnerable and raw, messy on the page.
I’ve built a business, written a book, got married, sold a business, moved out of LDN, lost a baby, made friends, started businesses and rolled with all of life. I’ve laughed, loved, cried. I’ve written to pain, anger, sadness, joy, love and as many emotions on the wheel as I could find.
10 years on, I’m a new man.
I’m sitting here writing this in a totally different place, with a life I want to live and want to be in.
That’s the difference.
For once, for just once I don’t want to change my life. I’ll fight to keep it, to keep the sweetness of this. Whatever it takes to be curled up on the sofa with Sarah, I’ll do it.
No destination, no get me out of here.
I love my life and I want to live more of it. I’ve never truly been able to say that.
And I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know what to do from this place. I don’t know how to be when I’m not in angst. I don’t know how to write when I am not in pain.
What do I say when I know I don’t need to pull on all of my emotional threads in search of gold?
What do I write when I know there are no answers? When I know that there is only this moment and our ability to dance in it.
What do I talk about when I feel like I have nothing to say? Or no need to say anything at all?
Who am I? If I’m not putting my feelings under the microscope.
Who am I? If I don’t have to understand and explain everything I see in the world.
Who am I now? And what does it mean for me, for me as a writer, for this newsletter?
Beyond me, I see you.
You, reading this now. I’m talking to you. I always have been and I can’t thank you enough for listening.
I know that I want the satisfaction of writing you something that you find nourishing.
I know I don’t want you only to be an email address and an open rate.
How can I write to impact you?
What could this be to you?
What has this been to you?
I know that this block is an obstacle for me to go through. It’s a mountaintop to reach. I know that procrastination, or frustration, or writer’s block itself are calls to a new place inside us, a new plateau.
I’m at a precipice and I hope in writing this I’m stepping even closer to this new horizon in me.
Let’s see what’s on the other side shall we?
Cheers,
James x
When I see “James Routledge” in my inbox it’s flagged. Highlighted. I always love your vulnerability, your honesty and for sharing you. Keep sharing. Keep flowing. The good and the bad. Whatever’s real and whatever your moment is.
I enjoy your newsletters. Always a different tone in each, easy to read and never superficial