Why I Write – Another Take

It’s been awhile; neglecting to put pen to page, my internal balance has been out of whack. Without the crafting of words to recenter myself, to learn myself as I see what and how the words come together, I’ve felt a little lost, as if walking through the woods at midnight without a lantern to shed some light. So here I sit with pen in hand, very messy, sad and overjoyed, confused and content, remembering why I was drawn to the craft of words in the first place. And in the process, I hope to turn on the lantern once again.

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I write because I believe in the power of words, and in a time so full of an over-abundance of them, I strive to add a dose of good to the collection. I write because I feel at home with my journal splayed open in my lap, Bon Iver or Ben Howard serenading my heart, as my insides bleed out to paint the pages. I write because life is never simple, yet putting some of it into words makes it somehow simpler, offering a frozen moment to grasp onto rather than trying to consume all of life in one bite.

I write to figure myself out, to figure others out… and then I write to do it all over again… and again. I write to give name to that aching splinter in the gut, because in the act of naming the things that bind us, they start to release their hold. I write to organize, even if it is a giant warehouse of files, my thoughts and motives and hurts and hopes so that I can stand back and see it all a little more clearly. I write to give myself a glimmer of hope that this big mess inside can be pulled out, written in a story, turned into a creatively beautiful and imperfect art rather than left to rot me from the inside out.

I write because it forces me to know myself, to face my own darkness head-on, and in facing my own I hope to better show up and stand beside other’s as they are facing theirs. I write because we all bleed a little bit, and rather than bleed onto others, I hope to bleed onto paper so that maybe I can learn from this contrast of red on white, and maybe other’s can too. I write because I am so aware that I have minimal control over the happenings of this life, yet I also know our influence lies in using the gifts we have been given. I write because sometimes all you need is a good listener, and an empty page is a pretty excellent one.

I write to change the world, not because I know how to do that or because my words are powerful, but because our world needs more people pursuing what they love without waiting for the validation to do so. I write to feel more broken, to feel the pain we numb ourselves to when we are faced with too much to take in, because only in feeling the brokenness do we heal and become more whole. I write so I can someday look back and see how far I’ve come, or to see how much less I’ll know then, or for some good humor that it usually takes more than once to learn the big lessons. I write because when I don’t, I feel myself in hibernation, aware that part of me is dormant and it won’t reawaken until the journal is open, the pen is moving, I am bleeding.