Picking Up the Pen

I don’t know what to write.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t put pen to paper like this in well… too long. I don’t even know why or when I stopped. I guess it happened slowly. Gradually. Not some dramatic “this is it, I’ll never write again,” just… life happening. AI showed up and actually forming my own thoughts started to feel like a waste of time. Why spend thirty minutes writing something when a computer can do it in thirty seconds? That’s more efficient, more productive… right?

And as I’m writing this, I’m realizing how much I’ve been letting AI think for me. It started so casually, emails, little ideas, wording for basic texts, and now I’m literally asking the computer for ideas before I even try to think of one on my own. And I honestly didn’t notice how much I missed hearing myself until this moment.

I honestly don’t really know why I picked up the pen today out of all days. I don’t really know what made tonight different from all the other nights I told myself I’d write and didn’t. I’ve had so many evenings where I thought about it, felt guilty about it, promised myself I’d do it “tomorrow.”

I just know I’ve been feeling a bit empty. Like the world around me doesn’t look the way it used to. Not less beautiful exactly, just… blurry. Fast. Like, I’m moving so quickly I don’t have the time to actually see anything anymore.

I used to think creativity was my biggest strength. My favorite part of myself. It’s what made me, me. I loved creating. Not because anyone needed it or asked for it, but because it felt good. It lit something in me. And now creativity feels like something the world doesn’t really look for anymore. “Need” isn’t the right word… maybe “value” isn’t either… I don’t know. But I do know that somewhere along the way I convinced myself that my creativity wasn’t useful, and so I let it fade.

What I’m realizing is that my creativity was never meant for the world at all, it was always just for me. Crafting little worlds in my head, rooms, cities, whole universes, and walking through them like they were real, painting the moon because the camera could never get the moment right, creating vivid images with sentences… all of it filled me in a way nothing else ever did.

And I don’t know why I ever stopped doing any of that. I think part of it is that I’ve been scared to actually sit with my own thoughts. That sounds dramatic, but honestly it’s true. I feel like I’ve been skimming through my life lately. Just moving from one thing to the next without really being present for any of it. And I’ve been calling it “being busy” or “being productive,” but if I’m really honest, I think I’ve just been avoiding myself.

I’m honestly annoyed with myself for letting it get this far. I kept telling myself I didn’t have the time or the energy, but that was just an excuse. I had time for everything else. I made time for everything else. I just didn’t make time for myself.

And I don’t want to keep doing that. I don’t want my whole life to be routines and excuses and rushing through things without actually experiencing any of it. I’m tired of feeling disconnected from myself. I miss feeling curious. I miss feeling present. And maybe I can’t fix all of that in one night, but writing like this feels like a start. Even if it’s small. Even if it’s uneven and messy. It’s still something that’s mine.

It also hits me that there’s so much I never wrote down. Years of things I lived through that would’ve filled pages if I hadn’t stopped. Not big dramatic events, just everyday stuff I wish I had saved somewhere. Thoughts I had, places I went, people I met, little moments I forgot about because I never bothered to keep them. I used to love having a record of how I felt at different points in my life, and now there’s this huge blank space where all of that should’ve been. I don’t know why that suddenly bothers me, but it does.

Writing this feels strange. Not bad, just strange. Like I’m doing something I used to do all the time but somehow forgot how to. It feels familiar in a way that makes me a little sad, because I can tell how long it’s been. I can see it in the way the words are coming out on this page. They’re not landing the way they used to. I used to find sentences without even trying, and now I feel like I’m reaching for everything. I miss the version of me who could take something ordinary and somehow make it feel like more. Who could write a line that surprised even me.

I told myself tonight: just pick up the pen and write. That’s it. It doesn’t have to be beautiful or impressive or worth reading. Just write something. Anything. And I meant that… but it still makes me a little sad, because deep down I was hoping something beautiful would come out anyway. I guess I wanted proof that that part of me was still there. And it hurts a little that it’s not coming easily. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe I have to relearn this the slow way. Maybe writing badly is still writing. And even though this is whole thing doesn’t even make sense, it feels more honest than anything I’ve done in a long time.

And maybe that’s enough for today. Just the fact that I actually showed up and wrote, something.

Today wasn’t about writing something beautiful.

Today was about giving my creativity a place to exist again.

About remembering that creation doesn’t need to be perfect to matter.

I’m not expecting anything extraordinary to happen after this. I’m not expecting to wake up tomorrow with my old spark magically back. But I do feel a small shift, like something inside me finally turned toward the right direction.

Tomorrow I’ll write again.

It won’t need to be good.

It’ll only need to be true.

And that’ll be enough.