Why I write

Coming back to myself

I am writing creatively and journaling regularly for the first time since I was 15 years old.

Since then, writing has been a means to an end—journalism and obligation rather than self-expression.

As a lonely, introverted teen, I wrote to express my angst, pain and growth. I would sit at my pale green desk, part of my childhood bedroom furniture, or I’d stretch across my bed, my “ghetto blaster” and clock radio on the headboard shelf above.

I had to be in a particular mood to write: down, sad, introspective, but functional. The music playing was crucial too: it was usually the contemplative album, “The Innocent Age” by Dan Fogelberg, or the evening radio show, “Pillow Talk” with the romantic and mellow DJ Alan Almond.

I would scratch out my feelings on rough, yellow-lined newsprint, and then I’d carefully re-copy my best work in my neatest printing into my bound, black journal, embossed with my name.

With its flowered wallpaper and blue shag carpeting, my room was my safe place, my cocoon, while my peers pursued more social activities.

It was my only activity of self-expression. In the 1970s and ‘80s, teen mental health wasn’t something parents worried about, and (at least as I saw it then) we weren’t encouraged to share our thoughts.

But I did discover something interesting in my recently uncovered collection of my favourite school and university essays. While looking them over in my basement last week, I realized that the teachers’ comments were all very similar: “Well done, but I’d like to hear your thoughts and opinions.” So there was more room for expression than I had ever internalized. It brought back how fearful and unsure of myself I was then.

Then adulthood—both the joy (no pun intended) and the shit—happened. If my teenage self was still in there, my adult self was too busy, and exhausted, to find her.

Ironic—or perhaps inevitable—that I spent more than half my lifetime in a government career where I buried my creativity and expression under corporate messages and strategic documents.

If life can be seen as a bell curve folded in thirds, my adolescence was the upward trajectory, the growth in independence that led to my moving away for university and asserting my independence only a few years later.

Then came the core years, the establishing years, when I grew a family, managed a home and built a career.

Now, with my roles as a mother, wife, daughter and employee all shifting, I am moving into the next third, which, if not quite yet twilight, at least brings it into view. I am trying to slow down, to relax the to-do list, and breathe.

Why do I write now? Still a lot of introspection and melancholy, I will admit. However, I write now to create a new self, to process my inner thoughts and feelings, and to find meaning during this curve of life.

Photo by Prophsee Journals on Unsplash