A Writer writes

I love me some Marge Piercy. She is my favorite poet and I'll be quoting her from time to time in here. She has a way of putting things. It fits. This from her poem
"For the Young Who Want To"

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.

I tend to loose myself in my wife/mom duties - they are for the others in my life and not for mySelf and, selfish as it sounds, I need something for mySelf again. I want to have a purpose outside of family. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with your only purpose being family - it is a good purpose - a noble one; I'm talking about me here and what I need as a person. It's not so much that I want to feel that I matter in this world, but more that I want to contribute. I want, no I need to feel that something I do, something I can produce, means something out there. I want to know that my thoughts exist somewhere outside of myself too.

So I am writing again. I have left it from time to time but to it I have always returned. It has been the one constant in my life. I have always written; for newspapers, yearbooks, professors, and in journals for myself. I have journals of poetry going back to seventh grade. Before that I poured my soul into music. I played the piano, the violin, and the cello. Somewhere around puberty I decided that I was no longer capable; that I couldn't do anything right; that I had no talent. So I stopped playing and started writing.

For me, writing was deeply personal. And it was private. It was MINE. No one saw it but me and so I didn't have to suffer through others' opinions of it. There was no recital, no judges, no teacher's metronome ticking off the beats which I was expected to hit. It was just me and my paper and my thoughts. It was a gift. It was my safe place. Because of this I was terrified every.single.time I turned in a newspaper column or a paper to a professor. Writing was like laying a piece of my soul bare - something akin to the dream where you are in public and naked and everyone is staring and pointing and laughing? Yep. Exactly the same feeling for me. But I wrote anyway.

Obviously all the medical craziness in my life has me thinking about why it's all happening; why I was chosen. And I'm thinking that maybe this mountain of crap I'm being forced to climb is for a reason. Maybe that reason is for me to use. A very painful Muse to inspire me to write. Maybe something I'm going through - if I write it down - will help someone else on their journey. Or maybe I'm reaching. I don't know. I just know I need to write. Write about all of it: the good, the bad, and the real damn ugly.

So all that to say this; here I am. Writing out loud. This is scary as hell ya'll. Putting it out there. Letting the world (or even a scattering few people whom I love and trust) see this. But it's scary all the same. Judgment, ridicule, ugly anonymous comments; those are the what-ifs. I am not going to let the what-if's stop me. As Chuck Wendig challenged his fellow writers to do; I am throwing my pebble.

Let's see how many waves I can make.