Peanut season rush hour is over, along with the sickening Christmas blood sugar-edge-of-a-coma digust, and New Year’s hangover, giving my head and body a chance to breathe and slowly return to a somewhat “normal” state. Or at least as normal as I can get….
It starts off quiet: I’m sitting at work adding a few new contracts to the system, typing out a spread sheet for taxes, which reminds me that I need to type up the lease agreement for the apartments, which then gets me to thinking about my apartment, and lighting, and color swatches, and washing machines, and the next thing ya know, I’m searching for Turkish rugs on eBay…again.
Or I’m checking emails when I suddenly realize that I might need to pin a few things. As I scroll through the ecstasy of DIY’s on Pinterest, my “painting itch” starts to creep up and the next thing I know I want to bake a soufflé, try to prepare chicken seven different ways, and “pick” a massive amount of chalk board for little to nothing. And somehow I still haven’t realized it…the bubbling matter that has been stuck within me for so long that is trying every way possible to tell me to LET IT OUT! I brush it off again, assuming that it must be getting close to my time-of-the-month, not even stopping to consider the amount of time that that has passed since I last wrote a full anything besides my “notes to self.”
I hop in the shower to rinse off the day, eager to clear my head before crawling into bed. That’s when it hit me. Instead of freeing myself from anything, the thoughts and inspirations that I’ve kept locked up inside me (attempting to hold them off until after peanut season and the holidays, when I would have ample time to properly compose them) began to spill. It’s like the heat from the water was seeping the words out of my pores and suddenly I was afraid of their vulnerability. When I push thoughts to the back of my mind and refuse to think about them, they are safe until I’m ready for a creative brainstorm to perpetualize* (Yes, I believe I made up the word perpetualize. But it works nicely.)them on paper…or the computer. But when they start to erupt on their own, I am always afraid that I will think them and immediately lose them (like most NORMAL people do with weird thoughts).
So, I half-a**ed the rest of my shower to get out as quickly as possible before my thoughts (literally and figuratively) washed down the drain with everything else. I threw on a borrowed robe and rushed into the bedroom, stealing “play school supplies” from a 3-year old to scribble down the thoughts as fast as they came to me. Note to self- don’t go this long without writing. Ever. Second note to self- keep notebooks close by so you don’t have to steal Josie’s paper anymore.
Creativity is not something that can or should be withheld. It will find it’s way out eventually. Even if through another channel like Pinterest or apartment shopping. It’s like screaming, or pooting- you just gotta let it out. Or else you’ll explode. Possibly in the shower.
It’s not even like I have profound thoughts that really need or should be shared with anyone. Kameron and Payton followed me to the bedroom last night after watching me run like a banshee out of the shower, making sure I was ok. I explained to them that I had to write my thoughts down. I felt very philosophical saying it, but the looks on their faces quickly made me feel like a drama queen. Big surprise there. Then when they asked what I was thinking that was so important I needed to write down, I re-read over my short-handed notes and almost laughed. Because nothing about it was important. But not writing it down somehow made me feel like I was going to lose that part of myself in that very moment. I guess I like to write because I can make little, nothing moments seem so much bigger, at least to me. And from then on, every time I re-read my thoughts, I can reflect and know exactly where I was in that moment.
I’m in love with words. And language. And cues. I’m not very good at using them and often times make them up, but I love to read them. They’re like music because they can make you feel. Or interpret. Or both. I love to write because it’s somehow an appreciation of the things I love the most. (Or possibly a depreciation from anyone else’s point of view after reading the things that I write.) When I don’t have time to really write the way I like to (in a non-rushed manner–the way I like most everything), I make stupid little notes to myself to return to later. I’m weird because I don’t like for people to read my notes in rough draft form. It’s like I am wary of them until I finalize and read over them again to make sure I still like what I thought I liked..I thought…. Because of this, I (purposley and subconsciously) write my notes in a cave-man like manner that makes simply reading them hard, and understanding them like trying to focus inside of a kaleidoscope. Sometimes I find the notes and can’t remember what on earth I could have possibly meant. Other times I read them and instantly know what I meant by “I wish I was strawberry cake.”
Nevertheless I need it like a drug therapy. (Yeah, we’ll go with therapy because that’s definitely more relevant in this case.) Some people enjoy hunting and the sanctity of nature, others enjoy the beach or retail therapy, while others simply prefer the burn of bourbon. I can’t say that I dislike any of those “therapies”, but my primary one is and always has been writing. I can remember sitting in my room as a child, mad at the world for who knows what, and unable to write my feelings because I couldn’t spell to save my life. So I started scribbling as hard as I could, sometimes ripping the paper and breaking the pencil lead or forcing in the marker tip beyond use. Then I started drawing. But I’m not a very good artist. But once I got the basics of language down, I started writing. And it’s all downhill from there. (I always wonder why we say it’s all “downhill” to explain something that’s easier/better. I get the easy part, but if something is better shouldn’t it be “uphill”. When I say “We finally made it to TJ Maxx and it was all downhill from there” it sounds to me like it went “down” in a negative sense, but in truth it went wayyyy up, because seriously, what’s better than TJ?!)
I am pretty sure that I use writing as an outlet because I cannot speak. Those that know me might initially disagree about me claiming to be shy, but after they thought about it for a while, I’m pretty sure they would agree. As bold as I would like to be, and as many awesome come-backs and introductions and speeches and prayers and probably-not- so-witty remarks that I have composed in my head, I cannot find the courage to vocalize them. Which is pretty dumb because I can write some of the weirdest things in this blog and publish them on the Internet for virtually anyone in the world to see, but to say the actual words out loud to even a tiny audience gives me the heeby jeebys. If my voice is paralyzed, at least my thoughts aren’t. Maybe it’s an accountability thing. Maybe I’m afraid that people won’t like what I have to say or will disagree with me. Maybe I’m afraid that they really will like it. Either way, writing lets me be more anonymous with the placement and usage. And the best part is, I don’t even have to be part of what’s going on in your (the reader) comprehension process…I think I just had an epiphany- my New Year’s resolution need to be to speak more. That includes having the courage to speak. What a good one!
Now that I have taken up all this space to express my undying and unnatural love for words and creativity, I think it’s time to draw this post to an end. I have formalized my bubbling thoughts in another document on my computer (and feel much better), which will be added to future blogs. Soon, I promise. But this one is getting weird and needs to stop. I think I think too much. Or maybe my ADD is getting worse…I wonder what I thought about in class when I was a small ADD kid that wasn’t paying attention….
Yeah, definitely time to stop.
See you again soon.
Love always,
Addie
“I wonder…if the rent in the canvas of our life’s backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually become places to see. To see through to God. Through the earthly trappings into glorious moments beyond. Through which His light is bursting through the openings. This was a see-through place, but until I opened my eyes, I would not see God.”– Daily Devotional, Girlfriends in God
Breaking out of the Bootheel 