My Story

I've had a pretty long stretch of writer's block over the past few months. It isn't that I haven't been writing. I write something nearly every day, whether in my personal journal or on my computer. My block sometimes comes from feeling like my stuff isn't "good enough" to post. Or, more often, a piece that I am inspired to write is left unfinished, and when the moment has passed I find it hard to go back to it to complete it.But, whether I publish it or not, I still write it. Probably, no one will ever read 9/10th of what is typed or written. Still, I write it.


Writing itself can be difficult for me. I hurt everyday and writing and typing often makes it worse. My hand coordination is severely affected and I often spend more time fixing typos than I spend actually writing. Also, I need to rest and sleep far more than most people do, or have the luxury to. By the time I have taken care of my kids and family (poorly most of the time), I have taken care of myself, and I have taken care of the thousands of other things I have to do, the amount of time I have in the day for ME is tiny and fragmented. Still, I usually choose to use it to write.

Writing has become my therapy. All the ugliness, fear, and hate along with the happiness, joy, and love swirls together and forms words that end up on the screen or on the page. I have literally dozens of journals that are filled with my final thoughts of each day. If I don't write these things out, they end up keeping me awake or turning up in my dreams as nightmares or as uncomfortably vivid dreams that hang around in my head for days. Sometimes a thought lingers long enough that I feel the only way to make it go away is to share it.

Publishing any thoughts never fails to give me a minute of panic or so. My audience is pretty narrow and I  don't often even get comments on the pieces I put out there. Still, I always pause over submitting them. Is this something I want to share? Will  someone be offended by it? Will it make someone's day or make someone feel sad? Is this ALL really something I want to share, knowing that there is a chance (however tiny) that a stranger could pick this up and send it on to even more strangers? Do I really want to release this out to the Universe, knowing it might come back to me someday?

I really need to start saying "Yes!" a lot more often.

Maybe everything I write isn't perfect. I'm not doing this for awards or notoriety. Nothing I have to say is deep or original enough that it would need to be opened, uncovered, or shared with the rest of the world beyond my little circle. If anything was found to be worthy of that sort of attention, I will gladly allow it, but I am grounded enough to know it isn't likely to happen. I'm not doing this for money. I probably will never see any sizable income from it.

I guess I'm writing for selfish reasons. I want to put my thoughts out there so that maybe, just maybe, someone will read what I have written and think, "Hey! I feel like that too!" And then, if I am supremely fortunate, that someone will let me know that I have helped them feel less alone. Then, suddenly, I don't have to feel alone anymore, either.

Deb