To me, writing is a way to breathe. I can sit here for hours and it comes to me like I asked for poems to dance in my head. Like I asked for random thoughts to develop into stories and for my brain come up with lyrics. It's not something that I usually have to try hard to do. It comes naturally. Like my fingers are bleeding onto the pages with all of my deepest and darkest thoughts. Every feeling that I have ever felt dances around me like I'm back in those moments again.
For me, writing is a processing tool. As someone who has an incredibly good ability to push feelings away, it's important that I bring them to light sometimes, and work through them so they don't eat me alive. It helps combat my anxiety. It helps me work through my depression or at least process my depression when it passes. It allows me an escape from reality where I have a place where I am totally in control. I can write from different perspectives. I can write about different people. I can place my feelings into a totally not real situation, but still have an authenticity about it because it was something that was mine.
I think that's why sometimes, I struggle to let people read my writings, especially family and friends. Because in every single word, there lies a piece of myself that I have just simply given away. And what if they don't like it? What if they don't like these real and authentic aspects of me that I rarely show, but are me just the same? What if they realize that I am completely a disaster? That I'm dark and twisty and as messed up as the rest of the world? What if they realize that they just simply hate me?
Obviously, the chances of them ending up hating me for characters I create and become for a moment in time is just simply not realistic, and they have never truly given me a reason to think they would. However, when I write, I become vulnerable. The things I can't express verbally, find the paper naturally. And they are indeed pieces of me.
If I couldn't write, I think I would be a lot more lost. Who would have guessed that a hobby that started in middle school would one day simply just consume my life? It has become something necessary to keep me sane, to keep me functioning. The world comes at us all so quick. There is often little we can do with the things that happen to us. But creating moments of vulnerability in writing changes the game. It, at the very least, gives the illusion that you are not alone and even if you can't relate with the story, you can relate with the feelings.
To me, writing is an important as breathing. Without it, I would be dead. Without it, I wouldn't have become as close with some of my friends. Without it, I don't think I could function. I honestly don't know how people go about their day without concocting new story lines in their head, or poetry or lyrics. They repeat in my head till I write them down. Till I get them right.
Do you have anything that's as important as breathing to you? Do you write? Do you paint? Do you woodwork? Make music? Dance? Play a sport? Let me know below if you have these same feelings about something that I do.
Till Next Timeee
C