Hey y’all,
Until recently, I was blogging on a free WordPress site, but I decided to make a change and upgrade my platform.
Because of this change, I would like to share the post that re-started my blogging journey. This post began with a question after an encounter with an old friend, and now that question has led me here.
Thank you for following along with me on my journey., and enjoy the post below.
All the best,
Rachel
“Do you still write?” she asked me, and I instantly cringed.
For one thing, the last of my writing she saw was of the adolescent fantasy and titillation sort, worthy of every deep, crawling cringe possible.
My only excuse is I was in middle school.
More importantly, though, I cringed because, in all honesty, the answer to that question is not what I would want it to be.
There was a time when writing, to me, was living and breathing. Journals, short stories, poems…most of it was crap, but at least I wrote.
Lately, the only writing I’ve been doing is the exasperated reply to a student e-mail here and there, along with bi-monthly writing afternoons with my friend and writing mentor, Laura, during which I usually lament having not written since the last time we wrote together, unless making lists and writing e-mails count, I sometimes joke.
“Yes,” I told my old friend, in answer to her question of whether I still write or not, “but not as much as I would like.” I can only hint at the truth.
Since that question, I’ve spent hours trying to compose this post in my mind, all while reasoning that writing this would serve two purposes.
One, it would show that I DO still write, even when it comes at the prompting of an old friend that I want to save face in front of.
Two, it would be the perfect first post for my revamped blog, the perfect “I’m not dead” and welcome-back post.
The truth is, this question solidifies everything my writing mentor has spent the last year and a half telling me: just write the first post. Take your idea and run with it. People will relate to it. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just put something out there.
What idea, you might well ask.
Over a year ago now, I tentatively admitted that I had this thought, this way of describing myself that I thought would make for a cool blog concept.
The Perpetual Starter, I could call myself.
Really, it’s the perfect moniker. I’m always starting new things. Finishing them is another story.
Laura has liked this idea from the beginning and has spent the last year or so helping me develop and crystalize it, encouraging me to pursue it, and a month or so ago, I made some small changes to this old blog, in hopes of preparing the way for this re-launch, this rebranding of myself.
But when I started making those changes, I had a huge anxiety attack and backed away from it, went back to bi-monthly writing meetings and dreaming about writing, reading about writing, teaching writing—doing everything but actually writing.
And then I ran into an old friend, someone who has seen my (without a doubt) worst writing.
Then she asked me that question, and the anxiety has stuck with me since.
“Do you still write?”
Do you still write, Rachel? Do you still give time to the one thing that helps you make sense of the mess going on inside your head? Do you still pursue the dream you’ve had since you were a little girl who couldn’t even write her letters, only scribbles?
Are you done denying that desperate part of yourself that needs words on paper (or screen, as the case may be) to poke at scary subjects, to bandage old wounds so they can heal, to tell someone how much he or she means to you, to share the vivid stories of your imagination with others?
Are you done hiding what you think and feel about what goes on in the world around you, so scared that others won’t like you because you may not agree with them?
With tears brimming in my eyes even as I type this, I say to her, and I say to myself, and I say to the world, without equivocation and with much more determination than I did the other night, “Yes.”
Yes.
I am still here, and I still write.
Now I just have to post this.
R