On Writing

After months and months of avoiding it, after months and months of internal conflict, after too many veils have been lifted…I’m re-launching my blog. Today’s essay isn’t fancy or long. It probably won’t help you or teach you or make you laugh. It’s actually about my favorite thing and my most dreaded thing on earth.

It’s about writing.

It’s about doing the one thing I can’t not do.  

I repeat, I do NOT want to write. And I do NOT want to share. And I do NOT want to publish. However, fear and raw need were clashing around so loudly that I needed extra wine (or tequila) to shut them up. Not cool. Seriously, never-ending daily noise in my head.

You guys…I write every single day of my life. And I have since I was 12 years old. I’m drowning in it and I can’t not put it out into the world anymore. But I also hate it. It takes so much time, it saps my soul’s energy, it’s boring and tedious. But it’s also really fucking hard because it is how I’m wired. I only know what I know and feel what I feel after I have written.

Plus, I really do love sharing things with people. I just wish I was gifted with something else, like making cupcakes. I’d rather be sharing cupcakes with people. But no. It’s writing. 

And now, there’s a whole new world for all of us and a lot of time to think and loads of time to write and not a lot to lose because so much has already been lost…so I’m choosing to do the one thing I can’t not do, even though I’m afraid. 

How afraid, you ask? ha. omg. you guys. I don’t want to brag or anything, but I’m pretty awesome at being scared. In fact, if I wanted to, I could drop a few thousand specific fears on you right this second. They rumble. all. day. long. But in an effort to try not to impress you right off the bat here, I’ll just give you my current Top Five Fears:

1. Fear that I’m wrong about all of the things I say and think and do
2. Fear that I’m motivated by ego and operating from my false self
3. Fear of being seen, criticized, judged, laughed at or ignored
4. Fear of stupid typos and hideous grammar
5. Fear of hurting someone

Not easy to rank my fears, but omg I’m so sick of being afraid…because now I can see REAL fear, all around me, everywhere I look. 

I feel like I got some of my melodramatic and uber-emotional volatility from my dad. I used to hate it when we’d have to talk about and analyze our feelings…and you should SEE the way my kids look at me when I start down the hey-sweetie-all-feelings-are-welcome-here-so-please-don’t-suppress-your-emotions-you-are-totally-free-to-express-yourself road. Eyes glaze over. Faces sorta droop. Mouths hang open slightly. It’s like they’re looking at me, but also wishing I didn’t exist.

So, when the global pandemic phase of life started to really dig in around here, I decided to read a memoir about….wait for it….yeah…the Holocaust. Super uplifting. Right?! And this is exactly what my dad would do…someone would mention something about Vietnam or war in general and he’d binge watch Platoon, Saving Private Ryan, The Deer Hunter and Full Metal Jacket…and just bawl his eyes out. Whyyyyyyyyyyy? I’d love to ask him, “Dad, why did I go for the Holocaust memoirs when we went into lockdown?” I wonder what he’d say to me…

I think he’d probably say something like, “I don’t know honey, it’s just something I can’t not do.”

There are just these things in life that you can’t not do. No one can explain it. You can try to ignore it, displace it, judge it or suppress it. But when the rawness of NEED becomes more basic, like in a war, or a global pandemic, facing those things you don’t want to face becomes less scary, somehow. It sort of clears the deck, resets the clock and certain truths emerge. And whether you like what you see or don’t like what you see, it’s hard to deny the clarity. 

For me, this lockdown has lifted a veil, revealing that I cannot ignore my need to write my life and share my essays. For you, it might be feeling the need to uncover your talent or reevaluate your career or adjust how your immediate family relates or perhaps your physical or spiritual or emotional health has taken a back seat for too long. I don’t know, the list is probably endless. But my guess is that if you think about it honestly, there is probably something that you know you can’t not do anymore. I’d love for you to join me, in fear and raw need, to step into the pain and beauty of transformation. We literally have nothing better to do.