Thoughts on Writing

And now... some real talk that has nothing to do with renovating your house... just your life. :) I love writing. I am not a great writer, but I like to do it. It calms me and riles me up. It awakens me and lets me rest. I am grateful that I was given the tools... well, taught how to use the tools to express myself.  In a lot of ways, writing saved my life.  Case in point: when I was FINALLY dealing with a lot of family stuff that I had put off dealing with for many years, I told my therapist that I was petrified to start tackling it all. This fear seemed all consuming. It was choking me out (hence, why I was in therapy).

"Why are you afraid?" she asked.

"I am afraid that if I start crying and processing I will never be able to stop."

She didn't even look at me like a cuckoo bird you guys! Instead, she nodded knowingly (like all therapists do) and the proceeded to give me the greatest tip ever.

She said, "Every day I want you to set the timer for 20 minutes and then I want you sit with the open page and a pen."

"And write?"

"It depends," she responded. "If you feel like writing and you have the words. Write. If you don't, don't. But you must sit there... still... for 20 minutes. When that timer goes off, you need to dry yourself off (from the tears, obviously) and go do something else. Take Skipper for a walk. LEAVE the house."

The first three days I did this, not a word was on the page. I just cried and heaved and cried some more. But without fail, that timer would go off and I would leave with Skipper and we would get about the business of getting about the business. Eventually words, sentences and paragraphs found their way onto the pages of various journals. But I never lost sight of the true exercise my therapist was having me perform: being still and thinking.

Writing lets me sit in my meadow of grief. It creates the meadow of grief. Writing lets me process that grief. It gives me a way OUT of the meadow while simultaneously drawing me back into it. Without writing, I would not be me. I would not be able to love. Period. So, yes. Because writing saved my life, because writing forces me to be vulnerable, because writing has given a voice to the things that I fear most, I love writing.

What about you? Any moments of sitting with the blank page and your own mess?

I have hit my wall

This morning... I did this to the truck.

And I lost it. I sobbed like a little baby and called LB with shaking hands and a quivering voice. My first thought, "LB is gonna kill me." My second, "How could you be so stupid?" So, I am having a really bad day 2 weeks before my wedding. Whatever this repair bill is going to cost... well, we don't have it. And beyond the money, we don't have the time. I don't have the time. I am embarassed, and ashamed that I thought this annoyingly huge truck could make that sharp of a left turn in a parking garage. I even stopped and thought... hmmm this might not fit. But because THAT parking garage is only $8 a day and not $18, I forged ahead and into the wall. The literal and figurative one.

I cried telling LB. I cried when he texted me saying it wasn't a huge deal and we would figure it out and he loves me. I cried when I got one emailed estimate back of "between $2000 and $4000." I cried when I realized I have to leave work early to go to the orthodontist to get my braces tightened and that will leave me roughly 2 hours to run around like a crazy person trying to get more quotes on how much this is going to cost me.

I have hit my wall people. I can't stress about LB getting his list done for the wedding, or about this blog, or about work, or about anything else right now. I am THERE. You know, THAT place. The place where all your dark thoughts about yourself hang out? Yup, I have just unpacked my bags in THAT place and am hanging out there for a while it seems. The only other recent times that I have like this are: 1. When my brother died. 2. When I was 2 weeks away from the bar exam.

I am so mad at myself. I have hit my wall. My limits are exhausted. This sucks. And sometimes there is nothing more poetic or true than saying, "Yup. This sucks."