Writing Difficulties

You'll get over it. This always passes. You've thought you've lost the knack before, but it came back. It always comes back. Don't worry. Be patient.

That's what everyone says to me. It's what I say to myself when I'm too depressed to write. Nothing hurts worse than to be out of touch with one's muse. There are columns to write and the remaining twenty percent of a short story to finish. It's a good one, which is why it hurts to set it aside from this long. Even putting down these few words is trying. It shouldn't be this hard to communicate with the world. When I'm healthy, words flow easily from my brain to my fingers, as if guided by unseen forces.

I have fifteen sessions remaining of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, or TMS, for short. The process only lasts for twenty minutes, but I have to go every day, Monday-Friday. Tomorrow I begin another week. Three more to go. And in the meantime, I'm beginning to learn the habits and the demographics of Uber drivers. I've learned the midday traffic patterns of southern Maryland. Sometimes I chat informally with the driver who takes me from office to transit rail and back. Sometimes I am too tired from the depression and the aftereffects of the treatment to want to talk to anyone.

This much is true. I have always hated hot weather and despised summertime. When I was younger, my unrequited hate was due to the fact that I find the temperature and humidity intolerable. Now, I hate it for a different reason. I am almost always depressed in the summer months. August is about to subside and I wish it good riddance. Now it's time to get my life back. But I'm not quite there yet.

Be patient with me. If it were my call to make, I wouldn't have had to take this respite from productivity. An underlying condition may be sapping my strength and compromising my energy in a different way. I see a doctor on Tuesday. I don't like being this dependent on medicine and doctors and never have.