Written Resuscitation

I walked along the cobblestone streets and rode the sleek elevators. I felt the sunshine on my back and the air conditioner on my face. I jogged to the park and drove to the movies. I constantly balanced on a fine line between new and old, here and there, me and them. I wandered around in search of something. I was looking for answers but I wasn’t even sure what the questions were. I was completely lost. And this scavenger hunt for questions and answers brought about more questions. How could I let myself get so distracted? How did I let myself get so bogged down in whatever had pulled me into this despair? What was the point when I became separated from my identity, my passion, my spark? When did it all come crashing down and where was I when it happened? Didn’t I see it coming? Was it like a wall coming down or did it hit me brick by brick?

These answers can only come from within. It’s going to take me shutting myself down and looking inward, navigating the labyrinth of loneliness that has become my chest, the maze of madness that has become my head and the long stretch of empty street that has become my soul. I have a lot of contemplation to consider and there’s a part of me that doesn’t even want to go there. I know the journey is going to be exhausting, sorting through the mess that is my mind until I find some clarity. I don’t even know if all the answers are there. Is what’s wrong with us stuck somewhere inside of our guts? Is it accessible as long as we think long enough, hard enough, or are we doomed to despair until someone tells us what’s wrong with us and then hands us a bottle of pills? Can we trust God to slowly sort things out or is it going to take an external influence? I just don’t know and so I’ll continue doing the one thing that ever brought about moderate relief to me: write.

When I was alive, I wrote a lot. I started doing it for fun but ended up finding it quite therapeutic. I think humans have a natural tendency to express themselves. We all have this burning inside of us, this innate urge to purge our thoughts and feelings. That’s why there’s art and music and the written word. And I was no different. I needed to express myself, too. The only problem was I had no one to turn to when I felt like unloading my feelings. My friends only wanted to unload on me, my mom told me to get over it, my dad wasn’t emotionally available and my dog was a great listener but he never had any advice to give. So, over the years all of my thoughts and feeling and emotions, whether they were good or bad, stayed inside of me. I had no where to place them, no one to present them to so they burrowed themselves inside my guts and began to fester. I started becoming emotionally distant because I was forced to. No one wanted to listen and so my voice grew pale.

Drawing was my first form of therapy. Sitting on the brown carpet with Crayolas in hand distracted me from the sadness. Coloring books and sketchpads offered a small reprieve from the pain inside but it wasn’t as long lasting as I found writing to be. No, writing made me feel different inside every time I would express something that had been stuck in me for so long. It felt like I had removed a small splinter, like the heavy thing that had laid claim to my cranium had gotten somewhat lighter. Writing rarely solved my problems but problems always manifest themselves in two ways: The actual problem and the stressful feeling that accompanies said problem. For me, writing resolved the stress part. And although it didn’t magically make everything better, it did help and at the time I discovered writing, I needed all the help I could get.

And this is why I write now. It’s my therapy. It’s the way I deconstruct my thoughts and re-examine my troubles. If I can articulate myself well enough, I can find a solution. If I can’t, at least I’ve gotten rid of the stress part. I’ve even managed to turn a great deal of my pain into poetry, taking back the control it had over me and turning it into something a little less ugly. Writing is the glue that holds my head together. Writing is one of the only things that feels good to me anymore…mostly. It feels good when I can write something beautiful or when I can organize my thoughts. But, when I have writer’s block or if my mind is too distracted, that’s when writing becomes the most frustrating part of my existence. It’s like I have this problem and yet I can’t get rid of it by my usual method so the only choice I have is to let it gnaw at me until I’m numb. And I find myself once again teetering along that fine line between opposites, discovering myself torn between two realms with writing being either my deliverance or my damnation.

Maybe I didn’t write enough, maybe I didn’t examine things as thoroughly as I should have because while writing might have kept me sane, it didn’t keep me alive. Maybe I just discovered it too late, maybe I was too far gone, too far damaged to be kept healthy. Not only did I find myself pondering the past but I also had a present to deal with and a future that frightened me. And all of that, past, present, future, myself, other people, the entire world, heaven, hell and everything in between all found itself crammed into my tiny little head and all I had was a notebook and a pencil and I don’t think all the writing in the world could have evicted all my vices. But, writing is all I have left so I won’t give up on it just yet. What it couldn’t help me with in life I hope it can in death.

Writing forces me to examine whatever happens to me on my mind. This examination leads to organization, which, in turn, leads to revelations that bring about salvation…or maybe in my case, a resuscitation.

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