This blog has become a bit of a desert in recent months, with new posts few and far between. I’ve neglected my tiny corner of the internet, left it to become a ramshackle shack. Once well loved, the wood is beginning to creak and what was once a brimming home now stands subdued in dust and empty space.

For a blog called Life Lived, an empty shack in a desert is not a great metaphor.

But, if I’m honest, there’s not been much living of life going on for me recently. Of course there has been the daily grind, but the demands of work and leftover grief have left me a little lifeless. There is little time for the Small Things, like going to the beach and walking under dappled light and staring at the moon.

That’s not true, of course. There are always the small things. But perhaps that’s why writing is so important for me, and why I should never have stopped. Some people love wine. And to fully appreciate it, they swill it and smell it and breathe it in. They talk about the notes in it. They drink it slowly. I love life – and my way of really savouring it has always been to write about it. Even when I was younger I collected quotations in little notebooks and journalled and wrote terrible songs. And in recent years, I’ve blogged.

In my tiredness, and a state of some bemusement about how things have ended up quite as they are, I somehow created a completely unnatural life for myself: one without writing. And in doing so, I have forced myself into a vacuum, sucked joy and gladness right out of my days.

Even now, just sitting at a computer with my hands at the keys – not to work but to write – precious moments from the week are flooding to mind where before I felt only the weight of negativity. It feels like release, into what my soul was made to do. Some people have art in their souls, some music, others any number of things. I was made to write my joy. Whether anyone else reads it or enjoys it is pretty much immaterial. Tapping or scribbling away brings out my best (albeit broken) thoughts and feelings.

I think I can begin to redecorate that old empty shack. Maybe it will look different in light of my recent experiences and life-changes, but I know it’s imperative that I sweep away that dust and make the place sing again.