4:30am

Funny how simple and easy the words seemed to appear in my head as I lay staring sleeplessly into the blackness of my room.  I've been awake since 3:45am.  Not quite sure why I awoke with no return into the blissful state of sleep- or at least not sure I am willing to confess or face the potential reasons.  The following is not the primary source of awakefulness but at least a part I am willing to look at.  But now faced with delivering some of my thoughts into a concrete form on the computer, the flow becomes a dam and I wonder just what it was I thought was so important to write.  Honestly- it isn't about the importance of the words- it is about an outlet for my thoughts and a hope for an hour more of sleep when I'm done by freeing a few of them.  Not as if anyone else but I has paid attention ,but my last post was in Feb.  In case you're not interested in doing the math that is -give or take -4 months.  Long time for me.  As I found myself pondering the need to record my trip to Turkey and the disconnect between that thought and any action about it I realized perhaps there is something more I am not willing to face.  I simply have not had the heart to return to my computer and write.  Yes, I am busy- but I am always busy.  One of the questions I faced this early morning was a why- why don't I have the heart to write.  And it isn't just my blog I'm not writing in- I'm not writing in any of my obscure notebooks I have hidden away.  I simply stopped writing. 
(One of the questions I ask myself as I write on a blog- free to the entire world to hear some thoughts in my head is- just how vulnerable and open do I want to be?  What is appropriate?  Will any words I write come back to harm myself or others with unforseeable consequences?  Argueable the debate on either side- I still worry- as I am currently about my thoughts.  What I write is a small snapshot of myself, not a large sampling and I hope it isn't perceived as such.)
My last blog I wrote- coincedentially, seems to be a large piece of the puzzle- why I'm not writing.  Grief and copeing mainifest themselves in different ways.  The particular exit of my good friend was a painful loss this year.  Many assumptions are easily made about the nature of this friendship and loss especially due to my absent details and veiled language- and I submit most assumptions are likely wrong.  (I do not want to dishonor him or the past.)  But tonight I realized that perhaps my avoidance of my writing is an avoidance of completing my healing process.  I have had a few prominent supporters of my writing- but his was of  particular importance to me- and to him I shared more of my words than anyone else.  His encouragement and positive feedback throughout the years I knew him pushed me past the barriers of prior self-opinions and enabled me to see/believe in myself and in my words in ways I never had before.  I will always honor him for this and other reasons.  Now it is 5:30am and the Wasatch mountains are tinged with light and the birds are beginning to inform the world that a new day is beginning.  Any hope of more sleep is fading by the steady march of the sun's path.  Time to get to the point.  I was not conscientiously avoiding writing because of my loss- All I knew is I did not have the heart- did not have the desire to formulate my words.  I am writing now to accept the source of my heartlessness-  largely to avoid rememberance, pain and loss.  By looking at it squarely in the eyes, understanding it, and letting it go a new freedom is just on the other side.  Looking back at these words today- there is no pain with them.  But there is joy.  Perhaps with the dawn this morning, I gained back a part of me.