Seven Pages of Solitude

Why do I write? What do I think about writing? Why does it matter to me? In what ways does it matter to me? What is it for, and where is it heading?

These questions have been rolling around inside of me and creating quite a ruckus for the past few weeks. I have thought about them, but I don’t know that I have many answers for them. At least, not as many answers as I would like.

A few months ago I was scanning through an old journal of mine and found the opinion of a younger me on this matter. It was from 13-year-old me’s journal, and it said something like “I love the way the words feel beneath my fingers, I love finding them inside of me and then expressing them outside of me. I love writing more than anything in the world, and I hope I never stop.”
I love writing more than anything else in the world, and I hope I never stop.

This is encouraging to me. It is encouraging that I felt it then, and encouraging that I still have days where I feel it now. It is like any love, though. The feeling of it wanes and waxes and shifts across the sky, just like the shape and path of the moon outside my window. Its always there in the back of my mind and soul, waiting for me to remember and return to it.

Sometimes I am more consistent with writing than others. I don’t really have a good groove down yet. This is because I don’t trust myself with words, even though I love them. I don’t trust myself with soulish ideas and the depth of emotion contained inside of myself, let alone all that I see in the world around me. I don’t fully trust myself, and this makes me-as-a-writer seem like a wild animal that has been brought in from the outside, half-starved and in need of some serious TLC. Sometimes I bear my teeth and flail, even though I know the warmth and intimacy of the writing process is exactly what I want and need.

It is a solemn thing to realize that my life and the world around me get along best in the realm of the written word. There is a part of me that feels like it is too good to be true, and another part of me that feels like there must be some mistake: me, as a writer? I can’t. For a million zillion reasons, I can’t and maybe even shouldn’t. Yet its been in me for such a long time, and I don’t think its going anywhere. I might as well make my peace with it and move into the future.

I hope my skittish heart settles down soon. I hope I find more freedom inside of myself, and that the freedom becomes a solid base that I can build the rest of my life and writing career on. For now I press on, eeking it out where and when I can as faithfully as I am able.