The past six years have been difficult for me. A lot of positive changes: my first car (no more taking the city bus and walking in Florida heat), a new job with a good salary and benefits, moving out of my mother’s house (finally), my first apartment, new friendship, romance, a renewed focus on addressing my depression and anxiety, my own dog.
But these haven’t been easy years, despite the causes for celebration. I wrote less and less because I thought that having a “real” job with a salary would be the cure to all my problems. I wouldn’t need the writing side hustle, my novel could sit on my computer unfinished because it was just meandering nonsense and I didn’t need it finished to feel a sense of accomplishment — I could get that every day in my “real” job.
But I was wrong; I’m here again. Writing because the “real” job of my dreams slipped into a toxic nightmare that shatters me each day. I’m here again writing because I need to, writing because I want to. Even if I’m pouring my soul out to the void I need to write, I need to let out the dreams and pain I’ve acquired over the past years. I’m here again writing, even if it’s not perfect. I’m making a promise to myself to keep writing, because even if it leads nowhere, it can ease the ache inside.
Tonight it’s just about the writing. Unlocking an inventory of my feelings and unspoken beliefs. Writing helps you research those hidden parts of ourselves. Things locked away that you didn’t even know were there are found, pages of your history, long-forgotten, are thrown there on the page for you — the right-now version of you, to analyze and interrogate.
Writing is supposed to be medicine, a cure to unravel the secrets and free yourself from the burden of mental anxiety. I’ve done a lot of therapy and all the therapists tout the curative wonders of journaling. I’m a little jaded about that perspective because if a journal was such a cure-all then I wouldn’t paying a therapist to help me.
But I digress.
Despite my skepticism about the miracle cures of writing I know that letting it all out in written form helps makes sense of the nonsense stagnating in my head. It makes me feel a little better, and I having it laid out in plain text makes the intangible real. It tells you that all really happened.
