I’ve struggled, lately, to write about anything of substance.
It’s not that I don’t have it in me.
A potent brew of words and feelings and experiences bubbles just below my surface—all the time.
But these days, when given the choice between fight or flight, off I go, fluttering out of harm’s way. Harm, in this case, meaning vulnerability. And the consequences of writing about the things I am most terrified to share.
When I write something worth writing, I want to immediately take it all back. Regret fills the air like a fog as I obsessively read my own words, over and over again, and I start to choke on it. And I vow never again to expose myself like that.
The truth is, though, that my hiding is selfish.
How many times have I been intensely inspired? Moved to tears? Or felt so deeply while devouring someone else’s story of anguish, or elation, or panic, or tenderness that it stays with me for years?
Most importantly, how often have I recognized the soothing feeling of sameness?
Do you remember the last time someone else’s experience, shared for the world to read, made you feel whole again? And not so alone anymore?
That is why we share the darkest parts of ourselves.
Just as I have been gifted and healed and revived through someone else’s brave sharing, so must I, too, send those gifts out into the universe.
It can’t be all take and no give. That’s not how the world goes ’round.
This quote from the latest episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” perfectly sums up why, the next time we feel something scary and painful bubbling to the surface, we must not fly from it in fear, but instead, let it out. Write about it. Muster up our bravery and hit post.
Because guaranteed, there is another kindred soul out there who needs those words to keep on going.
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