I Write Because

I write because sometimes I have things to say, and I can’t get someone to sit and listen to me spew 700 words at their face. They know I will barely stop to breathe, let alone let them get a word in edgewise.  Usually, if I get interrupted I lose my train of thought, and there is no going back.

Most of my thoughts and ideas come just as I’m laying my head down on my pillow. I would have put my phone away for the night, turned on the sound machine, inserted my earplugs, turned out the light, rolled on my side, and closed my eyes.  That’s when it happens…BAM!  There they are, the thoughts and ideas I have been looking for all day.  Probably five out of seven nights I have to sit up in bed, grab my phone and send myself a text. A text of all these ideas that only seem to come to me like creatures in the night. If I say I will remember them and write it down in the morning, I never remember.  Those creatures went off and found someone else who will listen to them and never came back to my house.  I have lost plenty of, what I’m sure are, the greatest ideas in the world that way.

In the beginning, my husband would tap me on the shoulder and mouth (because of the earplugs and the sound machine used to drown out his snoring also drowns out his voice) “Is everything ok?” I would shout, probably unnecessarily loud “yes, just an idea.”  Since he is a former songwriter, he can 100% understand this and rolls over and goes back to sleep.  He is back to sleep and snoring as I sit there texting myself, without my reading glasses on, because I have to draw a line somewhere, and hope I can read whatever it is I’m typing when I wake up in the morning.  It is only then that can I put my head back down on the pillow and fall asleep.

Some nights that takes five minutes and other nights I just give up, get out of bed, take out the earplugs and go to the living room to grab my laptop.  There are many nights where I have written by the glow of my laptop competing with the glow of the moon.

Writing is a weird thing for me.  I never had a diary or a journal growing up that I wrote in on a daily.  I always loved the IDEA of a journal, and I have several scattered around my apartment that are only filled a third with written words.  I will collect them, however, with their beautiful covers, the new book smell, and all the promise those new journals hold. And as I carry them up to the counter and pay for yet another one I promise myself I will write in this one.  Of course, I don’t.  Life has been made so much easier with the laptop.

This is why I write; I have so many thoughts running through my head, and my laptop is the only one who will listen to me sometimes.  I do, however, feel like a fake of epic proportions when I write.  I feel the same way I felt when I owned the bakery.  Someone is going to realize that I shouldn’t be doing this and tell me to stop.  I often read other people’s blogs, and some are substantially better than mine and others are not and it is the ones that are good that I think, “Just shut it down, who are you fooling, shut. it. down, before someone finds out.”

This week was one of those weeks. I felt like a fraud, and I shouldn’t be writing at all, and then I proceeded to write four posts. I write because, writing makes me feel better, makes me feel good, makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something that day.

I write to keep myself sane. Sometimes the posts are hits and a lot of times they are misses, but they are mine, and they keep me sane.  So, I will keep my little blog alive for one more day, if only for me to convince myself that I am not a fraud. The truth is if I’m keeping my blog alive until I feel validated, I suppose it will be around for a very long time.

That is why I write.

Photo cred goes to www.stthomas.edu because it’s a school of law and they probably have thousand of students who would like to practice suing me.