I haven’t been able to write in ages. My thoughts feel surface level. Any deeper than the surface and things start feeling so heavy I’m not sure I’ll ever resurface. So I float along. But I’m finding ways to have fun, still. Buoyed by some stupid TikTok video or dog poot.
My life is on the edge of a shift. I’m finishing my grad degree in a matter of weeks. Applying for jobs during the pandemic while our country reckons with our history and current state of racial injustice has been strange. I find myself reaching for my friends and family more--something of which I’m proud, given my history in hiding and disappearing from the world when I feel overwhelmed.
But I haven’t been able to write. At one time writing was my way of handling the chaos around me. Things just seem to move so much more quickly than before. I can’t possibly follow every feeling and thought swirling around my head. Not when so many of them are heavy and scary and wrought with significance. I think sometimes it’s enough to feel it (whatever “it” is to you) without putting words to it. But damn do words have a way of helping me work out why I feel how I feel about things.
How spectacular that there are people who feel so strongly about a feeling, a thought, an idea that they have no choice but to proclaim it, in writing, in song, in art, a life’s work. I want to find that. Grad school has simultaneously taught me that my words are worthy of being heard and deeply shaken my confidence in my voice. To be clear, therapy is what has helped me re-recognize the worth in my words and my voice in direct opposition, at times, to what grad school has shown me. It might surprise you that, given the chance, I would go to grad school again. I might, in fact--to earn a degree closer to what I’ve realized I actually want to do. Different decisions would be made, undoubtedly. But I still believe in the idea of learning institutions. One day a reckoning will come for those too.
In the meantime, I’m hanging out. Even though I haven’t been able to write like I used to, I feel the muscle getting stronger. Right now I’m content sitting in my feelings until I find the right order for the words in my head.
pixelskylines
prguitarman
vaporwave
yousharknotpass
