Uncomfortable

Having not written anything in much too long I’m feeling overwhelmed trying to find a place to start and one topic to focus on.  My mind was concocting a post that managed to include emotional eating, exercising, feminism and clothes all in one go.  And really that’s just too much.

So here is an attempt to rein it in a bit.  Notice I say attempt.

For a long time, but with varying degrees of passion, I’ve dreamed of being a writer.  As in a professional writer.  Someone who gets paid to put pen to paper.  I think I’m pretty good sometimes.   And as someone whose self esteem generally peaks at “I’m ok,” this is a pretty big deal.  Obviously, even if you have a talent for something, you only get great at it with practice, and I definitely do not practice writing enough.  It kills me whenever I read something about how to be a good writer or how to be a better writer and the tips are usually so simple.  Most often it will just say: Write.

I read something recently, though I don’t recall where, that talked about writing better and what you should write about.  It said to write about the hard stuff, the uncomfortable stuff.  I don’t do this.  I never have.  My old diaries and journals are full of entries that make no sense anymore because I didn’t actually talk about what happened, just how I felt in vague terms.  Not surprisingly, I’m not going to talk about anything uncomfortable right now either.  But, I’m hoping to.  I want to.

If you knew me in person, you’d know that I talk a lot.  All the time.  About everything.  And when I’m upset about something, I talk about it to everyone, constantly.  But, when I am really upset about something, I do not talk about it at all.  I will tell no one.  It’s a weird trait I discovered about myself in high school when I found out I didn’t get into my top choice college.  Now, I try to force myself to talk about things when they bother me that much.  The uncomfortable stuff.  In the last couple of years, I’ve had more uncomfortable stuff in my life than I would have liked.  And I’ve been ok about talking about it.  Actually, ok may be a bit strong.

The idea of writing about the uncomfortable stuff makes my skin crawl a bit.  It makes me recoil from the keyboard.  But what better way to improve my writing than writing about the stuff I don’t want to tell you about.  And this has to be good for me emotionally.  It’s certainly never good to keep it bottled up.

So that’s the plan for next time.  Something uncomfortable on the page.

Here’s hoping I can do it, and I can do it justice.