When Writing Helps

I grew up in a place where my closest friends were imaginary because there were no kids around in the country that were my age. My home life had its ups and downs, just like everyone else. In my darkest times, I started to write. When I was young, I remember how cool it was that I could have a diary, but I never really wrote in. I didn’t have siblings trying to get it, but every time I started to write, I kept thinking how dumb it was to write all these things in here. 

I played imaginary games with made up people a lot. I played Thunder Cats a lot and X-men when my little brother wanted to play with me. When we played X-men, he was always Wolverine, and I was Storm. On my way out of town, there would be little creatures I made up that would run alongside the car. No, I wasn’t really seeing these things it was all in my mind, and they never became more to me than my present reality. They were a way for me to process being lonely and the case of isolation. 

As I grew the stories about these places poured out of me, and the life I was living was hard. Many times, while I was taking care of cattle stories, would just come into my mind. There were no notepads in the slop with the cattle, so I would use word association to remember until I could write them down, which was always before I went to bed. 

I wrote on a lot of school bus rides to and from school. Which I hear now you can’t even do. I scribbled in my notebook about my crushes and how they never knew me. I wrote about being hurt by friends. I wrote poems about things in my life that I couldn’t understand. I cried a lot when I wrote, but I didn’t have people to talk to so I turned to the page. I spoke to the pages when no one was there I wrote to get through things. 

In college, I wrote to process the death of family members. I wrote to be creative too. I opened the doors of my mind to things in the world I had never been exposed to and ideas on the darker side of life that I never explored in stories because I was living it. I thought the writing might too closely intwine, but I found it helpful in moving forward in my life. 

I started to do morning pages later in life as a way to empty out my emotions on the page after beginning to read the Artist Way. It was a great way to mind dump my feelings that had been building up again. This was caused by living a life much I did as a child in isolation. It is not my purpose to live this way, but it just seems to be the season I am in.  I have used this journaling for positive self talk though it looks like a lie at first there is something to be said about writing in that way. It has changed me and moved me to a more positive place again.

I have also felt a sense of peace after having sat down for a session of writing. It is almost as though it a religion, but it is not for me. The type of paper doesn’t matter if it is just a journal entry, free writing for 5-10 minutes, or maybe I work on my book. Another significant benefit for me it that it is moving toward the things I really want in life. I want a place where writing is part of my future, and to be a positive person. For me, it is more about allowing myself to finally spending time on myself and allowing me to be who I was always meant to be ultimately.

On the days I don’t write something I feel like I’m off that day. Sometimes I am a little irritable and not easy to get along with. There is something I think to what everyone does in life if they really love what they do. It doesn’t seem like work, and sometimes it becomes the thing that makes life a little easier to deal with.