The pen

It's been many years since I've picked up a pen and poured out my thoughts.

I used to do it daily, but when you learn, too late, that your every word has been read by another, the humiliation sticks and the words do too. Instead I picked up my keyboard and made myself at home in this space, right here, writing down my words for anyone to see.

Some things can't be shared with the whole world. There is real and raw and authentic, yes, but there are also other people's stories, that tangled mess of mine-but-not-mine.

But writing saves me. The words build and build inside me and they demand release, threaten to sour in my veins if I don't bleed them out, I need to write need to write need to write the way I need my very breath. So I picked up my pen and a pad of paper and I bled pain in ink and tears and it was Good.

It continues to be good. The little one's naptime now begins with me picking up that pen and writing as she falls asleep beside me. It's cathartic and easy and I didn't realize how much I edit online. Cover all the bases, clarify this, preempt that, add disclaimers and feel guilty because I didn't take the time to find a picture to go with the post; I'm a bad blogger. To write just for me and no one else? What rediscovered freedom!

Of course, there's no one in my journal to push back, to point out, to provide feedback. No one to encourage or empathize or share their own stories of pain or beauty, death or life.

That is why I keep coming back to this place: I need you. Thank you for being here.

Just writing along with the EO...