As I sat down and opened a blank document, the screen felt glaring and intrusive, as though it was imposing itself on my thoughts rather than inviting them. The endless potential of the blinking cursor didn’t inspire me; it paralyzed me. I’d grown accustomed to seeing my words form in my own handwriting, immediate and intimate. Now, those same words were caught in the back-and-forth of my mind, hesitant to leap back into pixels.
For a while, I stared at the screen. The blankness mirrored my uncertainty. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, stiff and uncertain, as if they’d forgotten the choreography they once knew so well. Typing felt foreign—a mechanical task I couldn’t fully connect to.
But then something shifted. Maybe it was muscle memory; maybe it was patience. Slowly, I started to type. At first, the words were awkward, and disjointed, like pieces of a puzzle that didn’t quite fit. But with each sentence, the rhythm returned. My fingers moved faster, more sure of themselves. The hesitance gave way to momentum. Before I realized it, I was drafting fluidly, the hesitation dissolving with each keystroke.
I hadn’t anticipated how visceral this adjustment would feel. Writing, in any form, is intimate. Whether it’s ink on paper or text on a screen, it’s about translating thought into form. The medium shapes the experience. Longhand, I’d felt connected to the physical act of writing—the slowness that allowed for reflection, the deliberate commitment of pen to paper. At the keyboard, though, the pace was faster, the connection less tangible but no less real. The words came quicker, sometimes tumbling out too fast for me to consider them fully, but they came nonetheless.
Recently, I’ve returned to my fountain pens and notebooks, rediscovering the joy of their familiar feel. There’s a quiet magic in the scratch of the nib against the page, in watching ink dry into permanence. Yet, I’ve also committed to working in both formats, recognizing the value each brings to exercising my mind and creativity. The duality keeps me engaged, challenging me to adapt and remain flexible in how I approach my work.
As I finished my first session back at the computer, I felt a quiet sense of accomplishment. There’s something valuable in adapting, in rediscovering a skill you thought you might have lost. Returning to this way of writing wasn’t easy, but it reminded me that process matters less than the work itself. What matters is showing up, whether with a pen in hand or fingers poised over a keyboard, ready to transform thoughts into something more.
