dark places

I don't write much anymore. I miss it--there's something about getting things onto paper that makes them more tangible, easier to handle and analyze. I write when my thoughts are disordered and hard to deal with, mostly--the process of finding the right words and making something unique and flowing is one of the best ways I know to get rid of the panic of dealing with it alone.

I've always loved the idea of journals. I have several--one for poetry, one for personal stories, and one that was meant to be a sketch journal. The poems haven't been added to in over a year--the stories require time to be written that I don't have. Sketching makes my life so much better, but again, time is lacking, and I'm a perfectionist when it comes to creating (not the perfectionism that requires "perfect", so much, but the kind that goes for a certain feeling, a nuance), so there are only a few pages filled.

I've gotten used to being dissatisfied when I read back through the stories I've written over the years. You see, I mostly write when I'm in pain. Exhausted. Lonely. Distressed, and trying to work out tumbling, spinning thoughts in my head. And so it's mostly a chronicle of sadness, which doesn't reflect what life is really like for me. Usually.

When I'm happy, I'm too busy living a story to find time to write it down. And that in itself is rather sad, in a way. I miss putting soul to paper, and I miss sharing. So, I suppose, what pulls it back out of me is a desperate attempt to make sense of the world again, and to restore myself a bit by creating. It makes things lighter in a very dark place.