A writer

At what point does one realize that they are a writer? 

Over this past week, as I have been more actively posting, this question has been turning over in my mind. I write. It's always been something I do, something I've loved, even something I've been addicted to. But where in lies the separation between writing, and being a writer?

On one of my pages today, my dear sister-in-law posted an Anais Nin quote: "The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say".  She said it made her think of me. 


"Other people think of me as a writer?" I wondered to myself. Insert here every negative thing you could ever think to yourself about why they shouldn't and "why you are not a writer" -- both from myself, and even from others I know.  

All day long at work, all I could think about was what I would write tonight. Throughout the day, little things inspired me, prompted me ... but I also felt an obligation to attempt to get the story of the journey to the current time. I would push away the more creative impulses and focus instead on what to say in the planned post. 

Even as I got home tonight, I'd step into a room, something would capture my eye or spark in my mind, and I  would think "Oh! I should write about that!" But by the time I got to the computer itself, the other story needed another chapter. I felt emotionless and kind of disconnected and unfocused as I composed it, just praying that somehow the words would skip their way into that pretty little city called "Touching". Yeah, I read it once I finished, and I think it made it about 1/4 of the way to "Touching" and then pooped out. 

There are days when you live something so intensely, so continuously, that actually having to think about what its like to be in that moment can be completely exhausting. You live trying to be outside of it so that it doesn't consume you, and then you write, trying to tell the world the story of your heart and your body, and you separate from it, just so you don't collapse. And suddenly, the story is empty and has instead become a narrative, a boring documentary instead of a lively commentary. 

I think the hardest part for me is trying to relay the "way that it happened" ... when all I can really think about at the moment is about how upset I still am that I cried yesterday during an ultrasound (seriously??? who does that??) because it hurt so bad, and about how hard I tried not to scream during the biopsy. I'm not used to feeling or expressing weakness in front of many - it is something that only the rare few that I trust get to see, and here I was, not only crying, but crying in full nekkid glory. Sigh. 

I started writing again to release my story and here I can't stand to write it. 

A writer reaches people with the words that they paint, the worlds they build and the characters that they make into reality. The pulse of their language drives into hearts, souls, and minds -- and creates change. They touch many and capture their readers to the point of hunger for the next words. This is the goal and dream of most writers, and few ever achieve it. 

My goal, instead, is to express myself. To pour everything onto this blank screen and feel every moment. To never write something that my heart isn't in, and to stay true to my muses and inspiration, no matter what form they take in that day. To me, some days I may be a writer, and other days I may be just someone who writes. 

My mind (or, the loss of creativity)

It's come to my thoughts lately, that for years, I protected what I cherished most. My mind.

Even through painful and debilitating bouts of depression, I hesitated and often refrained from treatment so as to not scar or impair my ability to do what I love most, writing. And somehow, in the gaining control over the depression by avoiding that which causes it, I have also encapsulated every essence of what made me creative. I have become dull.

My fear of words has surfaced in the trying-to-find-myself period that we are currently in (more commonly referred to as fall). This is usually a time of re-build, re-focus, re-invention and creativity for me, and this year,  I'm just not feeling it. I have found that when I try to tap into these words - the way that colors and pictures and emotions could pour themselves into a line filled by rises and falls, how curves and paths of language used to dance and skip along the page for me - that I am instead trying to pull them weakly from behind the bars I have guarded them in with. This is so unnatural to me, this fear of expression. Why am I so afraid?

I suppose that in a way I am afraid of the emotions hidden beneath. In the last year I have cried more, laughed more, lost more and found more than I ever have in my life thus far. And yet, with most things, I feel nothing. I have surface attachment to things, even to people. I feel love as though it is a butterfly fluttering its wings softly against my skin but it never finds a place to land and take a few seconds respite. It flits near and far from me, depending on who or what is happening in my realm in that moment, and only in that moment. I feel sad moments much the same, tears one moment, numbness the next, as though I have no right to cry.

I suppose that I also feel that I am "too busy" to take the time anymore, to write, or to feel. It's exhausting, this task of creating ones soul on a page, all of the thoughts and emotions messy and the words taking on meanings and lives of their own ... knowing that likely no one but your own mind can understand, but praying that someone will, all the same. You give  birth to these words, this language, and then you set it free and watch it flounder in a world where everyone speaks French and it is fluent only in Greek.

I know most of my fear lies in reaching out to the emotions that writing requires. It means giving up control over the depression side of things and allowing the good, the bad, and the ugly to rear its wonderful impossible head again, and then trying to clean up the aftermath. I have seen those days, the darkness that causes shadows even in the bright sun, the tears that run rivers over lined paper, causing the blue ink to run like veins on marred skin. Un-caging these animals means letting all of them loose, for where you free one, you must free them all.

I fear the intensity that becomes me when I write. I no longer see the world as it is, but I create it as I want it to be. It wreaks havoc and instability into my life, causing chaos and the screeching cries for change that I don't know that I am young enough for, not to mention capable of,  following anymore. I have children, a job, responsibility that I have enough problems shouldering without the distraction of the dance of language.

Yet tonight, here I sit. I am writing. It beckons me, the words taunt me, daring me to pull them one by one, little by little and to let them breathe. It feels empowering somehow, freeing, and also has the feeling of playing with an entire case of zippo lighters while standing next to a gasoline tanker.

It makes me wonder just how often I can do this. How much can I write and feel and yet maintain control over the beast of depression? How much of my mind and my soul and my words can I bring to life before they take on a life of their own that smothers the one I need to have? Is the one that I think I need merely a misconception of perspective?

I suppose I feel that I am not at a point in my life, within my friends, that I can be the creative one. I have been overshadowed by artistic talent with vision that humbles me and intimidates my desire to put anything to paper, for how can I ever measure up to such a view. I am afraid of my words not being good enough... but good enough for whom? Is the fear that I feel enough to bind the words forever?

I know this -- without this part of me living and breathing, it kills the rest. I long for nights with a keyboard and a blank screen, begging me for patterns and texture, asking me to create it, to build it and make it everything in my mind - almost as much as I fear it. Maybe I haven't stopped protecting it after all.