Flashing Back to 8/8/09- on 8/24/11

One of the reasons that writing is so powerful for me is that it is a chance for me to see myself as an outsider. I can allow my psyche to flow from my fingertips and then come back later to get inside my own head. Writing is very much like dreaming for me. I usually don't remember my dreams, or only recall pieces. What I am able to retell seems like ridiculous nonsense and jumps from person to setting to time frame, leaving me confused and wondering what I was thinking.

Today I spent some time reading my old blogs from the summer of 2009. A pretty pivotal point of my life, as I was coming to terms with my unhappiness and the trapped feeling that I felt in my marriage. I came across this entry from Saturday, August 8, where I expressed jealousy over our two cats, I came upon, cuddled up together. I longed for someone to hold me, be close to me, understand me, love me. I felt so alone. I desperately ached to be wanted. As I read my own words, and looked back at a former self I no longer identify with, I realized how powerful it is to record my thoughts and feelings.

I haven't written in what seems a lifetime. It is part of me and I miss it. However, I know why I have stopped. I write from the heart. I don't hold back, I tell it like it is and I need to write not just for myself, but for others. For a while I got pretty good at being cryptic and disguising the truth with analogies and riddles. Only those who were closest to me really knew the nightmares I was running from, the dreams I was chasing. Everyone else was able to take their own struggles and identify with my words. My writing was therapy for not just myself, but for others.

Now that my life is an open book, I feel I have to be much more guarded about what I put out there. The simplest things offend others or are misunderstood, and taken the wrong way. There is no more hiding behind creative words for me. It is out there on the table or not at all.

So every now and then I travel back in time and read my words. Like a drummer who has lost use of his arms, listening to his recorded music, I long for those days I could play. Yes, I could change my writing topics, just as the drummer could be musically successful in another way, but I am not ready. I'm just not ready.

In the meantime, I will bask in the arms of someone who loves me and be grateful that my writing kept me sane until my dreams came true.