Torturous Writing

From the title of this post I bet the first thing that comes to mind is one of those times we all experience as writers. We love our craft but now and then we find ourselves having to write something we don’t want to. A voiceless article with a deadline, a manual, a school essay on a topic we don’t really enjoy. The craft then becomes a process and instead of natural it becomes forced, rigid, and almost painful to make ourselves stick to it.

But what if I told you by "Torturous" I meant something I wanted to write…?

Last night I started working on something. A typed journal entry of a sort. At first it was a blog entry, a little something about some memories of mine that I felt an uncanny urge to share though now I’m not so certain I can post it. Not because I don’t want to but because… well, it’s hard to explain. I’m not typically afraid of what people have to say on what I write from my real life but I am afraid of pity. After my experience last night I fear it would break something that is brittle at the moment.

Memories left to collects dust and thin from age and moth holes were aired out last night. I opened them up and exposed them to the elements within, rubbing them raw with my thoughts and feelings and the intertwining of more powerful memories that I hadn’t meant to release. These are the brittle things I speak of.

"I’m in such a wonderful mood but tonight I feel like writing about the bad things. It’s alright though- better to examine the dark places within when you have a little light to take along the ride this way you’re left no more grey than before." That was the first line of my writing before I started to go down that path. It was strange. I could hardly believe that I felt like writing about this stuff- not as a means of coming to terms or releasing it- I pretty much did all that on one long painful process before I changed my spiritual name, no, I just felt like sharing.

I started to write a little bit about why I was writing this stuff, just like above, I constantly feel the need to explain myself. Then I wrote a little background about myself and the people around me during the time of these memories and then lastly I started to write it. The explanations are a bit of a warm up for me, a way to toss myself ever so carefully back into a time and place that I rarely visit.

The writing was normal at first. I crafted out particular things like I would when introducing a scene in one of my stories but then something happening. The steady trickle that is usually my writer’s voice began to drip and stutter with something new. The water of my words had started to drip from another pipe and little by little the steam opened up. I couldn’t write from a distance anymore, suddenly I was there- my thoughts of the time becoming my thoughts of the present. I was no longer the name I go by now but once again the person I was back then. The water of my words began to gush from the faucet faster now as if they couldn’t come out fast enough. I was skipping around, going back and forth, my writing sporadic.

I was still a writer. My words, my bleeding heart, it is the only way I know to safely express myself.

I wrote for maybe three hours non stop, without looking back, without editing. I was typing faster than I knew I could but still not as fast as the water and the memories. I went like this until I was halfway through what I had originally set out to write when I surpassed a rather painful point- well not painful, but rather something that is connected to another something that still holds a might bit of power over me today. I was so tired and drained.

There were points while writing that I could feel a lump in my throat and my eyes felt hot and watery. I was alone in the room though so I forced myself not to cry. Those around me knew not what I was writing and it would be a little odd to start crying for no reason. I would speak of it just before I finished but I didn’t want their encouraging words, pity, or heartfelt wisdom to taint me beforehand. I couldn’t think about this as an adult while writing it for I wasn’t an adult wen it happened. At other points during this I felt stupid, utterly stupid and naive though I know I was neither. I was merely sheltered and cultivated to believe in untruths- not quite lies but something different and more sinister all together.

I’m not sure where I was going with this post. I suppose I just wanted to write about this experience since I’m still uncertain of posting the actual writing -after- I’ve turned it into something legible. If anyone is interested I’m looking for someone to read this writing of mine off this blog and to ask them if it is perhaps too ‘dark’ to post. That’s one of the other reasons I’m unsure of posting this writing. Often when I tell people things from my past they can’t believe it happened or they get upset that it has happened or worse they are shocked and appalled that anything like it can happen at all. Because a lot of what I write- be it spiritual, personal, or philosophical is normal to me I see it just as that whether it was bad or good or in some nice safe niche between the two. I don’t actually know if this is too dark a thing to put here.

If anything: I do want to add it to a collection of mine. Someday I want to write a book about things, mostly memories. I don’t think a lot of people wouldn’t read it and I hope a lot of people don’t need to but I would like that the writing and experiences could help someone else. Who knows. Anyway- this was a nearly pointless post. My pardon.

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