By coolbeans

I spent several hours today thinking about what to write. I looked for memes. I checked out writing prompts. I considered ripping off Plain Jane by pulling together my own “Go Read It Today” post.

Instead, I checked my archives to send you back to a post from 2006. But this time last year, I wasn’t writing. At least, I wasn’t writing online.

My empty blog archive sent me to my secret hiding spot for the real dirt my brain coughs up. I dug out the paper journal I’d used last year in the middle of an emotional avalanche. I tipped the notebook back and forth between my palms, feeling its weight, wondering if this wasn’t a really stupid idea. Maybe today’s the day to write bad haiku.

Deep breath
crease the spine
dive inside

There wasn’t an entry for today. In fact, there was a gap between the end of October and the end of November. The closest I came was “I haven’t journaled for almost a month.”

Open to Fall
no words for today
just a dead end

I thought that I might share some of that journal someday. I anticipated scanning pages, blurring text, biting my lip and the bullet as I hit “Publish”. But at finding nothing in the heart of the fall last year, I flipped to the beginning and read through to the end. I wonder what I had thought was worth sharing. When I read it now I’m detached, calm, and judgmental. I think it sounds a little too dramatic. A written prayer feels forced, my plea for a different history reads like melodrama, the need to get everything out of my head looks like exaggeration. I decide, “This is too much. It’s so over-the-top. Who would want to read this? It’s grim and dismal and a little ridiculous.”

But that’s what it sounds like when you want to die.

I moped around for a few minutes because I felt stupid for thinking the things I thought. I was angry for things I wrote. I was angrier for words I didn’t write and couldn’t have written because I never said them.

I didn’t stew for long, though. I don’t have to. I’m on the other side of it and I’m not still writing those things because I’m not still feeling those things. A part of me wonders if maybe it really was selfish and self-indulgent. But I remember to forgive myself. Truly, I struggle to envision how it could have been different. I worked hard to stay on top of things. I was doing everything right but I’d been running on empty and had even gotten out to push for a good long while. There’s only one other way I can imagine getting past everything that I blew the whistle on last year. And now, I can’t imagine not being here to write this today.

_______________

1-800-SUICIDE
(1-800-784-2433)

1-800-273-TALK
(1-800-273-8255)

Originally posted here.