In the wake of losing her daughter, Joan Didion spoke of embracing emotional pain.
"I myself have always found that if I examine something, it's less scary. You know, I grew up in the West and we always had this theory that if you saw - if you kept the snake in your eye line, the snake wasn't going to bite you."
I regularly struggle with writing in personal form. There's a part of me that enjoys sharing the innermost workings of my brain, mainly for selfish reasons, but the topics I tend to steer towards are topics I've spoken with other people on because their struggles unravel in a similar fashion, and the more you talk about anything, the less of a taboo it becomes. Or, at least, that's how conversations on difficult topics are supposed to work. I tend to overuse the phrase "broken record" when it comes to my ability to converse about any single thing but in the grand scheme of things, I'm also aware that all I know is what I am currently experiencing. Similarly to my girl Joan, if I can examine anything enough, it becomes less daunting.
I am a Class A overthinker. Anything you could possibly say or do to me, I have already considered or said to myself. I'm the worst at ruining surprises because of this. Sorry, friends. Naturally, the more I think about something, the more I consider it, the more I talk it out, the more I'm able to find the ins, outs, pros, and cons to literally anything. Writing is not exempt. I love to know about people. Their quirks, their stories, traditions, what makes them tick, and most importantly as of recently: their love languages. All of these things I share on a regular basis between friends and strangers and somehow I still find myself regretting when I do so. I've longed my entire life to want to leave an air of mystery to myself, yet have a constant internal battle with wanting to tell every story I have locked in my brain.
There is not an ounce of me that deserves to be mysterious. I've always been an open book in some form or fashion, but as I've ventured further into my 20's, the more I'm realizing I really don't mind talking about almost anything. Of course, we always want what we don't have. I suppose what I'm uncertain about is the ability to find the fine line between sharing just enough and oversharing. This wasn't meant to turn into a self-reflection session, but it sort of feels like at some point I just accepted the idea that no one would want to learn about me, so instead of forcing it down people's throats, I stayed quiet.
Partly anxiety, partly insecurity, high school was the worst time for me to talk. These days I come home with a hoarse voice because of the amount of talking I do to complete strangers, and in high school, I refused to even talk to the guy I liked even though we had (sort of) been friends for 2 years. He used to bug me and pick on me and talk my ear off all day and complain that I refused to talk to him, despite the fact that he had always been an outgoing kid. A mutual friend tried to convince him to take me to prom and instead of leaving it alone, he came to me and said "I would take you to prom if you'd actually dance and talk to people, but you'd rather stand in the corner." That sort of reaction to keeping to myself was always daunting to me and I suppose in some ways, still is. I've come to learn that this is considered, in a healthy relationship, the role of the observer. Perks Of Being A Wallflower was released as a film in 2012 and you BET I made every Facebook status "You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand." I finally wholly identified with something.
Writing has always been an outlet for me. Through incapacity to sit down and write a full blog post, I'll write an Instagram caption or send a sappy message to someone who makes me feel worth a damn. I've always been better with writing than speaking, clearly. However, I don't think I will ever be able to fully stop relating what's going on outside to what's going on inside. And in some ways, I suppose as long as I keep finding growth in both places, the ability to tell everything about myself is nearly impossible. I want to share, I want to relate, I want to have something to converse about and someone to do it with. Or a lot of someones.
As I started to type out this next paragraph, I realized a lot of these stories are coming from high school and I think I need to have a sit down with my inner child because of this. Anyway, as I began and simultaneously stopped myself, I was devastated when I wasn't made yearbook editor in high school. I worked so hard and tried my best to earn that position, even years before it would be decided my senior year. Yearbook is where I truly shined. I loved every aspect of the writing, the constructing of the pages, the taking photos, coming up with the ideas for what the pages would be, even the times I had to dress guys 2 years older than me for their senior cap and gown photos that did not make me any less anxious in the 3 years I did it, I truly enjoyed being in that atmosphere. Was it stressful? Yes. Was it dramatic? Yes. Do I have more horrifying stories than good ones? Yes. Did I ever lose sight of what the whole point of making the yearbook was about? Absolutely not. And I thought I showed that passion. When it came out that for another year I'd be copy editor, I was disappointed, to say the absolute least. No explanation, I sat down at my desk in the corner once again and continued to work because that's where I was most at ease.
So I'd write. Art Club, captions for the Disc Golf page, reflections on a fellow student that had passed, and at the time I truly thought this was some groundbreaking shit I was doing here, guys. Reading back on it, obviously, my vocabulary could have been expanded and I should have understood the thrilling act of finding synonyms for overused words, but it was still my job and my passion, nonetheless. Nothing got printed without my double checking and it made me feel like I was important, even if it was just for a small amount of time.
When I write these types of things, I hope you find them important in some aspect. To be able to connect the dots between an experience I've had and an experience going on in the world is what allows me to examine what's happening and make it significantly less terrifying. And even if I can't make sense of it, I can at least break down what I'm witnessing and make it a little easier digested.
Joan Didion has become something like a beacon of light at this time in my life. I am all consumed by most of the things she's written and a lot of what she's done. From a young age, she showed promise in literature and I'm wildly thankful I was able to be introduced to her decades later, even if it was by total accident. Funnily enough, I was introduced to her because someone spoke about her essay called "Why I Write." I suppose this is sort of the Dollar General version of that. Nonetheless, I find so much power and inspiration from what she's accomplished and she's sort of become the pencil for the storyboard I'm trying to create for myself.
Comments