Posts tagged with "writing"

Revealing Words

A read­er recent­ly sent me an e‑mail. This was the last para­graph:

Lastly and please don’t take this as being bold, I want to keep read­ing and one day read that you are noth­ing but hap­py and ful­filled. I would nev­er post a com­ment because I am too shy and also pret­ty prone to being embar­rassed by peo­ple who are cool­er than me (and I con­sid­er peo­ple who blog as peo­ple who are cool­er then me), but many times when I read your entries I feel like I am watch­ing a pro­tag­o­nist in a favourite movie or re-read­ing Siddhartha. Does that make any sense to you? I’m cheer­ing you on and I’m in your cor­ner.

It made me won­der: if she wants to read that I’m hap­py one day, does that mean that I’m not hap­py now? It forced the real­iza­tion in me that the answer is no. Obviously no. Life isn’t great. But do I only write about the bad stuff? I’ve always believed that you have to suf­fer to cre­ate. I’m one of those, so maybe this is the case. I imag­ine it’s the oppo­site with my Tai Chi or table ten­nis part­ners, who must think my life is per­fect, because of how hap­py I am when I’m doing those activ­i­ties.

It also made me won­der how much of myself is revealed here. Someone once told me that she sees two dif­fer­ent sides of me: one who is seri­ous and intim­i­dat­ing from the things I write, and anoth­er who is easy-going and relaxed over the phone.

So what comes through in my words? Certainly not every­thing. But it’s the same as any­thing else, because it’s hard to get a total pic­ture of some­one, unless, per­haps, you spend an appro­pri­ate­ly uncom­fort­able amount of time with them.

To Write And To Remember

I admit that I not only save oth­er peo­ple’s posts, but entire blogs.

Sometimes, there are entries I like to read over again. Other times, I just like to be remind­ed of how right I was. But more often than not, it’s the ephemer­al nature of blogs in gen­er­al, com­bined with the fick­le nature of ado­les­cent writ­ers still try­ing to “define them­selves” on a free medi­um, that gives me the itch to save. So many writ­ers I used to fol­low have changed domain names, start­ed pro­tect­ing their entries, or delet­ed their blogs.

Some things are garbage and should be for­got­ten or thrown away — but some things deserve to be kept too. Word-for-word, exact­ly the way it was spo­ken, because that’s the way it was expressed.

Fortunately, or unfor­tu­nate­ly, depend­ing on your point-of-view, our words do last. Just because they aren’t there any­more, does­n’t mean they were nev­er spo­ken.

There are con­se­quences to the things we write, whether we want them or not.

A Change In Writing

There’s so much to say, and not enough time to write. It’s obvi­ous that I haven’t been stick­ing to any kind of post­ing sched­ule late­ly. The ben­e­fit is that I don’t feel the pres­sure of hav­ing to write some­thing every day, the draw­back being the fact that things I want to get down are often lost. When I do get a chance to write, it’s like I’m per­pet­u­al­ly writ­ing about thoughts, feel­ings, and events that are a month old.

Perhaps anoth­er evo­lu­tion in the way I write.

I used to write my thoughts quite often. Things I had to fig­ure out or get off my chest. Now, it’s most­ly things that hap­pen in my dai­ly life, and some­thing ran­dom here and there. It’s like I’m mov­ing beyond my con­fused ado­les­cence into some sort of reflec­tive dotage.

The entries from the first year were writ­ten with so much more fre­quen­cy — rough­ly three times a day. Then that changed to once a day, then every oth­er day. A few times, I tried to write less fre­quent­ly, with­out a set sched­ule, but that nev­er real­ly worked. The writ­ing itch was always there. At one point I took a month-long hia­tus.

Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m try­ing to say.

The thing I par­tic­u­lar­ly miss are the entries writ­ten late at night. Spilling my soul out in words, with the music, the sky, and the emp­ty streets guid­ing me. As tired as I would be (I swear, some­times it was the exhaus­tion that brought it out in me), I always went to bed after feel­ing sat­is­fied.

Now, I’m not sure what this all is.

Questioning Happiness

Last class, Mike asked how I was doing, and as a some­what phat­ic response, I told him I was doing well.

He told me, with a chuck­le, that if he did­n’t know me any bet­ter and went only by my writ­ings, he would imag­ine me to be like Joe Btfsplk, with a per­pet­u­al rain cloud above my head.

So I went home and read through the last cou­ple pages of my entries, and found that they paint­ed a some­what lugubri­ous pic­ture.

I’ve always con­tend­ed that hap­pi­ness is too hard to write. When I feel like express­ing myself, it’s often because of a prob­lem of some sort, inter­nal or exter­nal, that I need to fig­ure out. Writing has always been a way for me to get my thoughts in line, and off my chest. Not much of a peace­ful, detached, care-free Taoist, am I?

Perhaps I’ll always lead a Cohen-esque life, where love, sex, phi­los­o­phy, and depres­sion are the dom­i­nant themes.

The fun­ny thing is that my life has improved tremen­dous­ly after ther­a­py. I used to be a very dark per­son. After gain­ing the sta­bil­i­ty of a house and a career, along with sep­a­ra­tion from my moth­er, not much else has changed. I’ve come to real­ize that it’s not so much the things in my life that’s improved in the last few years (aside from the strug­gle with anx­i­ety), as my atti­tude. To be hon­est, I have noth­ing to com­plain about.

That does­n’t change the fact that my entries have been some­what depress­ing.

Perhaps I’m still not tru­ly hap­py yet.

Or per­haps I’m still not look­ing at things the right way.

Bittersweet Paradox

bit­ing keeps your words at bay
tend­ing to the sores that stay
hap­pi­ness is just a gash away
when i open a famil­iar scar
pain goes shoot­ing like a star
com­fort has­n’t failed to fol­low so far

and you might say it’s self-indul­gent
and you might say it’s self-destruc­tive
but, you see, it’s more pro­duc­tive
than if i were to be hap­py

—The Dresden Dolls, Bad Habit

I was jit­tery and ner­vous all day.

Several new devel­op­ments have left me with a lack of res­o­lu­tion. People to meet, presents to give, pic­tures to take, respon­si­bil­i­ties to ful­fill. And as much as I try not to think about it, it’s in my nature to do so.

I still haven’t got­ten passed this feel­ing. Still don’t know if I want to. Still don’t even know what it is. All I know is that it’s mak­ing me man­ic.

Until I fig­ure it out, I’ll wal­low in it.

I can only write this at night. When I’m falling asleep and off my guard, sit­ting on my chaise, with the cur­tains drawn and the win­dow open to the win­ter air.

Now I feel like writ­ing, but I don’t even know what to say. Everything’s too jum­bled for me to decide whether I’m hap­py or sad. Maybe it’s both, maybe it’s one because of the oth­er. Life, at the moment, is so bit­ter­sweet.

Wonderfully bit­ter­sweet, that’s what it is.