Writing for Me

For weeks I have been seeing signs (almost daily) telling me that I should do what I am afraid to do, that I should speak the stories that are getting caught in my throat, and write the ones that are making my hands shake as I clutch the pen or stroke the keys.

I had been ignoring these messages, but then I began to wake up with words on the tip of my tongue, and my heart felt as though it was near bursting for all the things I was not saying.

It seemed there were some secrets, some old hurts, some healing, some earned wisdom that were determined to make their way into the world, one way or another whether I allowed them passage or not. I realized then that we are not in always control of what we share, but we can have a hand in how. I am working on the how. As the words come to me I write them down. I don't worry about editing them, I just let them flow.

I go back, read them, feel my heart flutter with that familiar fear that says "you should not be writing this," and then I put them away before I am overcome by the urge to alter them, censor them, soften their edges. 

I hope to release these stories out into the world one day, but for now, the reader I am writing for is me. And not just present me, but also for adolescent me, young adult me. Though, I worry about how she would receive what I'm writing. What would she think of the way I see the life we lived? How would she feel about these lessons I wish I could share with her? Would she be proud of what we have become?

Laid Bare

Writing has been a source of great healing, release and relief for me, but it also terrifies me. Actually let me back up. Writing is not the scary part, it's the sharing part that sets my nerves on edge.

Patching my words together, loving them until they are bonded to one another, and then sending them out into the world to be looked over and scrutinized by people who may or may not realize all that it took to bring them to life is agonizing. 

It is much like sending your child off for their first day of school, hoping the teacher will appreciate them the way that you do, praying the children on the playground will not poke fun, or be cruel. 

Sharing my stories feels so deeply personal, because while much of what I write is fiction, (or poetry, which always feels like my life in riddle form) there is a little bit of my story in every story (and every poem). I bury bits of my past, hints of my pain and traces of my journey throughout it all. 

There is something of me in everything I write. 

And while sharing anything I write is difficult, fiction still has always felt safer than writing about my experiences directly. If sharing fiction is like sending a child off to school, then writing non-fiction feels like walking out of my house completely naked and stopping to ask each stranger what they think of me. 

Yet, I continue to feel this need to share my story outright; to stop masking it with the garments of my imaginary friends who only exist in the worlds I've created for them, and in the mind of my readers. I am working on being brave enough to satisfy that urge.