Something I wrote last May... about writing and what it means to me. I don't always have these feelings for writing though. Lately I've been craving stability, thirsty for it, about finding God, in different ways. Sometimes when I wrote I felt like I was writing to him, or just explaining the sources of my anxieties, putting them into perspective... backing up and filling in what I couldn't in 'real time'. But lately I have been wanting to use different outlets for that- talking it out, praying, reading, being more in the moment. I don't think that's running away. Maybe that is stepping aside from the writing form or craft, but I'm not running away from myself or my life. What I wrote last May however, begs to differ with that. It declares that I am merely piling things up inside when I don't write for a long time. So now therein lies the conflict- within myself. And how I agree and disagree with myself. The exhaustion of Gemini-ing!
5-19-15
(in reference to the film Babadook) “...and in a way, that’s like writing. You’re always scared. You face your blank paper, you just tackle the beast and then you’re a beast and then everything’s great. I don’t know if I have too much fear when I write. I have anticipation, I’m glad to try to get it all down, I know coming out the other side is gonna be good. I might be pained a little bit, I might feel hurt as I write about it but I don’t think I feel fear. I don’t know if that means I’m not reaching as far as I can yet, or have I really learned to grapple fear throughout everything else? I think I’m scared when I don’t write for too long, because it’s all piling up inside me, so maybe I know well the consequences of not writing so I am okay in front of a blank screen or the blank page because I’m glad that I am actually in front of the blank page and now I’m going to make it 'not blank' anymore, I know I’m one step away from filling it up. And I know that after I fill it up, it’s gonna make, things are gonna make, more sense. and it’s gonna feel more manageable. I think Vanessa says she writes for power or for her voice? I do that too a little bit, I definitely do it for my voice but I think self-control is the thing that I’m after more. I can put my trauma down on paper or my insecurities, if that makes sense. Then I have control over my story. And my story doesn’t attack me from out of nowhere. I don’t get the random flashbacks that I used to get. And the memory doesn’t over take me like it used to. Writing helps me calm that down. I don’t need to be controlled by flashbacks. And meditating too. I can see a flashback on its way, coming at me, but I can pat it down, I can move it aside for later. I can minimize it just a tad, just for now, just so I can finish whatever it is that i’m doing whether I’m cooking, or at work, brushing my daughter’s teeth just doing, living my life, I can be like yeah oh ok, oh this horrible random flashback memory? ok guess what it’s not gonna cloak me, it’s not gonna envelope me, pull me down in the quicksand or ocean. It’s going to wait. It’s going to wait outside 'the principal’s office' for a little bit until I’m ready to deal with it and reconcile with it and explore it. On my terms. So to me, that is a form of power but it’s not power over anybody or anything, it’s just control of myself. Control/discipline that is the key.
