I used to consider myself a writer — far from a professional writer, but at least a writer in my spare time. I sometimes wrote when I was happy, but mostly I wrote when I was sad. I wrote when I was mad. I wrote when I was confused or lost or conflicted. I wrote when I was completely apathetic. I wrote because I had no idea what else I wanted to do. I wrote because I was good at writing…and because I was good at a lot of things, but passionate about none of them. I wrote because my mind would race, and jotting down my thoughts would force me to at least slow down to the speed at which I could type. I wrote because I realized I could make myself laugh. And then I wrote here in this blog specifically because I realized I could make other people laugh, too.
I don’t really write anymore. I think about writing all the time, but I don’t really do it. I piece together funny little sentences in my head, and amongst the million and one other things swimming around in there at any given moment, I think, “I could write a blog post about that.” But I don’t. I used to carry around a pen and paper with me everywhere to jot down silly ideas and take them home and write about them. But I don’t do that anymore either.
I don’t remember when or why I stopped writing in this blog. I know I got really busy. I got nervous about literally the entire world having access to it. A lot of bloggers don’t understand that. But then again, a lot of bloggers started blogging exactly for that kind of attention. I started blogging because I wanted to make a website. I wanted to type instead of write with a pen. And I wanted a way to keep in touch with my friends and family without having to send the same email to all of them at once.
Maybe I stopped writing because I stopped feeling so sad. And mad. And confused and lost and conflicted. I stopped feeling apathetic. I found something I love to do. So maybe I don’t need to write as much anymore because, for the most part, I’m pretty happy now.
Or maybe I didn’t stop. I still write in emails and text messages. In Facebook posts and Instagram captions. Intermittent tweets and daily Chatter messages at work. Bits and pieces strewn haphazardly across various channels of communication that might all add up to something resembling a coherent thought or story or…maybe that’s a stretch.
But the thing is, I do still have a bad day here and there. Or a bad week. Or sometimes just a really stressful month. Or two months. Or hell, even three. And nowadays, when I’m feeling a little out of sorts, I don’t sit down and write. I sit down and read something by one of my two favorite writers.
And so it occurred to me today that I either need to snap out of my recent stressed-out funk or start writing again. Otherwise, I’m going to run out of material to read. Because one of my favorite writers is deceased. And the other one is me.
