Today Again, I Restart

Last updated on: October 7, 2026 at 10:01 pm by Sherry Antonetti

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Today Again, I Restart 2026-10-07T22:01:36-04:00 Sherry Antonetti

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Who we are often centers around what we do. This week, as I sat resting after grading three classes of papers, I pondered the reality of not considering myself a writer anymore, because I do not make it a priority, a requirement of the day. The trouble with identifying with what you do, is the minute you stop doing, you stop feeling you can call yourself that thing and somehow, getting back on the writing wagon is harder than falling off.

I scrolled through a few videos, on ADHD, on the dogs being good, and hit upon a student reciting a poem called “The Writer,” by Marianne Williamson. I do not know the movie, Coach Carter, as I tend not to watch teacher movies. They all are real. They hit the right notes. I just know most of life and teaching is not the soaring score, but the day in day out saying, “Why are you late?” and “I know you can do this.” and pouring out positivity when we don’t feel it. We don’t get the musical score behind it, or often get the punchy moment but when we do, it’s a secret happy dance inside.

The kids don’t know we’re celebrating their victories because we have to keep those moments in our hearts. They do the work. They get the assignment. They render an insight something like this:

and once they leave, once we’ve gone back to our desk, in our brains, there’s this moment:

but internally.

With writing, it’s the creative process and the hit submit button that completes the experience. I realized, I haven’t been writing to submit lately, or really even to discover what I think. The pen still holds power over my memory –I need the list every day, and the calendar, and the reflections. But the paragraph, the essay, these have been awol since around February of this year. I am a writer who does not write so what does that make me –a hobbyist? A hack? A failed writer? A blogger? or…

A writer who lost her nerve and her habit over the course of months and now must “begin again.” My spiritual life suffers from the same frantic frenetic ups and downs –rosaries and adoration and mass and everything for a while, and then, I go through days wondering, “Did I pray?” and I can’t answer yes or no, because the days bleed together. I hope it’s yes. It needs to be yes.
Like Mary’s yes. It always begins little. It always expands outwards towards infinity.

With respect to reading, to writing, to prayer, to excercise and I start to feel overwhelmed, because the answer to everything needs to be yes, and I can’t find the time for even one “No.” and so just not doing has been a way of not saying no, but living it. So as I stood before my class talking about taking risks, facing the blank page, I felt my own writer heart tapped and told, to stop being tapped out, time to beat again, and take risks, and write.

601 words. Not so hard, didn’t take forever, just willingness to begin, and follow through. Same with prayer, exercise, reading, grading, my brain started in…yes, “what if we are light beyond measure?” Why not be not afraid? The alternative is a dull blank page and who wants to be that?

Not me.

The tricky part will be tomorrow, when I must remind myself to do this again, until I reach the point, writing again becomes both second nature, and part of who I am, not who I was.

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