Writing about writing

I must start with a side note-- I hate, with a passion, yes hate, h-a-t-e when you learn things on facebook that you should never, ever learn first from facebook. Don't tell me something bad has happened to someone I really care about via your status. Pick up the phone and call me first. Yes, "it is a good way to get the word out quick" but it also does a world of hurt to the heart to find out that way. On the phone, you can ask questions. You can feel comfort from the person you are talking with. You can even cry together, if you need to. Or, at the very least, be concerned together, in shock, not talk about it together, whatever the situation calls for. Finding out on facebook only makes you feel more isolated. Yes, sometimes its REALLY hard to give people news, but at least text it. Yes, yes, I know that texting it is not the most ideal way to go about it, but you can still converse over text. There is lag on telling people via facebook status. Just. don't. do. it.

Okay, side note done-- my apologies.


I have, in all honesty, come to write here several times throughout the past couple (which feels like several) days. Sometimes opening up a new post, not even striking a key before I end up closing it again. Other times writing part of a sentence and then closing again. Still others, writing a decent amount but not wanting to finish and not quite wanting to share it publicly just yet.

There is a need for time to process. Many of my posts are loaded. I would be lying if I said that this is not how my mind works. If you have read even just one or two of my posts here, you more than likely have figured out that what comes out in words is what is inside of me regularly. Although this is true, this does not mean that I always want it there with such intensity. It is a part of me, though. Somehow, I am just it's keeper. Sometimes, though, being the keeper is too much and I must rest.

With rest comes a building need. Although I am not writing, I might be sorting through thoughts mentally-- they are nearly interchangeable for me. But this too becomes too much at times. The mind, perhaps the spirit too, requires rest and time to let the concepts and questions to fall away before we feel ready to pick them back up again. This is where I have been most recently.

I say that this is where the beauty of the writer's notebook comes into play. I have been jotting down things like a fiend! Which is also why I have come so many times to write here yet have not fully done so until just now. Regardless, I have all of these thoughts, gems, stowed away in my notebook, ready for me to pull them out and deal with them, put on my cap as keeper again, and express them through word.


I have to also say that this time away from reflection is not an easy time period, not just because the thoughts and the internal need to continue to process and discover does not go away, but also because the NOT dealing also cause a sense of unrest. Restlessness.

Have you ever found yourself realizing that you are in some sort of funk only to then realize that you don't really know why you are in that funk? That is how I get. I realize that I have a lot of wrestling going on inside, thoughts and perhaps feelings I have not taken the time to deal with.

I am not quite ready to deal with all of them yet, but I have to say that that is okay. That is another interesting element in it all. Certain things we have to deal with, process. It will consume us if we do not. But, luckily, magically, we do not always have to deal with all of them all of the time or right at that particular moment in time. "Compartmentalizing", it can be healthy and unhealthy. Quite simply, I have found myself on both ends of the spectrum. I would be surprised to find anyone who has not.

And although this is the place I seem to have been finding myself within the past couple of days, last night, dead tired and attempting to stay awake long enough to get into bed, I pulled out my journal (hand written) and poured out a poem I didn't know I had flowing around in me.

You would think that after about twenty-one years of writing (I'm 24 now), I would have this concept that writing is central to who I am figured out a bit more. I am not quite sure how I don't seem to fully comprehend that fact. It is almost as though I rediscover it every single time I sit down and suddenly have pages upon pages of writing, so much so that I regularly find myself in disbelief at how readily it all came pouring out. Maybe that is some of the beauty of it too; I forget that I "can write". Truthfully, the idea of sharing my writing with someone else, even someone I trust completely and know I will not judge me at all, is remarkably intimidating for me. Which is interesting to also know that this blog is 100% public-- I even have the link on my facebook page. (I think starting this blog was partly a means to push myself to get my writing out in a space where others can 'read' that part of who I am again.)

I find that it is different when someone else starts up a conversation about my writing. I like hearing what others think, a lot actually. But because of many things long ago, I fear what that reaction will be. Expression should be something to feel secure about and to take pride in. What the tricky part is, is that it is so deeply personal. But I have decided to be okay with that. I want, at least a few, people to read what I write. I want to continuously push myself to keep showing new sides of myself through writing. I enjoy having it come up randomly in conversation and I enjoy hearing what others think of what I speak through my writing. There is always wondering when we put something out there.


And, yet again, I have to say that I came to write about something remarkably different than what I have placed here. That's okay, the thoughts are in my head, they will be here soon :)