Is writing therapeutic for you? Is the process remarkable or is it warfare?

“The thing about writing is I can’t tell if it’s healing or destroying me”- Rupi Kaur

Every time I pick up a pen, approach the keyboard, scribble a note…I’m liberated and imprisoned. Simultaneously.

Writing feels more natural than speaking . It gives way to a flood of emotional awareness more purifying than any sermon I’ve ever experienced. A writer’s devotion is unequivocally the most beautiful relationship between the mind and artistic expression. Words shape history.

There’s no life for me beyond assigning words to their proper place in a line. Giving syllables meaning in a sentence that is just specific enough to reveal who I am without erasing all sense of mystery. (Being mysterious is my thing).

Although self-expression saved my life, I am at a crossroads many writers come to at some point on the journey.

The more I write, the less elusive I feel. The more clarity I experience, the less comfortable I am in my own skin.

The truth is only medicinal if a person is ready to devour it wholeheartedly. Otherwise, it’s poison.

Being lost is my justification for being too busy to sit and converse with closure. I’m not sure I’m ready to toast to who I’m becoming.

Closure is intimidating because when one saga ends, another inevitably begins. And with it- comes all of the jarring aggressiveness of newness.

I like being lost. Wanderlust, by definition, is a strong longing for or impulse toward wandering.

The joy of being emotionally off-grid and committed to the nudge in my heart that tells me what’s the priority from moment to moment- is barely describable. I’ll reduce it down to a simmer and call it “bliss” for the sake of brevity.

The conundrum I face as a writer is troubling because the more I write, the more I discover about myself. The more I understand, the more I heal.

The trouble with healing is I occupied myself with those old wounds for so long that I don’t know how to do anything but nurse brokenness and bandage the mosaic shards of my heart. I’ve been a caretaker for so long. First for others and, ultimately, for myself.

Now that I’m well, what am I to do? Now that words and time and love are woven together like a tapestry to hold me close and call me beautiful…what am I to do?

Healing is an anti-climatic temporary rejoice for a person who is intimidated by new beginnings. New beginnings precede more elongated goodbyes. And so on.

Am I the only one who avoids fresh confrontation, awkward conversations, and impending disappointment by sitting with stale pain for as long as possible and reliving the dysfunction? I don’t think so.

Some of the best writers in the world write about childhood poverty from the plush seats of privilege because telling old stories is a marvelous and cozy way to cope with and remain friends with sadness.

Nobody warns a writer that solving life’s equations in essays, will free her from versions of herself once held hostage by resentment and self-deprecating rope strengthened by addictive excuses.

Being free isn’t easy. I wrote most of my masterpieces in bondage.

What do I write about now?

Writers struggle. We experience creative plateaus because of personal growth, shifts in perspective, or the inability to tell stories while experiencing the raw heartbreak of day-to-day living.

Well-known writers shared quotes specifically about the difficulty of writing, not for lack of ideas or motivation but because bleeding on the page requires absurd strength, flexibility, and vulnerability.

“Pain is easy to write…but what can one write about happiness?” -Graham Greene

“Maybe that is my superpower- I can inhale pain and breathe out poetry.” -John Mark Green

“The thought of writing was always pleasant, but the process was painful.”-Monica Denise Brown

“A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the real requirement is the ability to remember every scar. -Stephen King

Is writing therapeutic for you? Is the process remarkable or is it warfare?

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