"The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself.... Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant re-arrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss." - Joan Didion, On Keeping a Notebook
I feel normal this morning. Like some kind of balance has been restored to this mad existence I've been experiencing over the past year. As if the purging I've done over the last week has somehow removed that acrid poison from my brain.
I know sometimes I'm harsh. I know sometimes I hurt people with words.
Words - my most effective tool, or weapon even. I wield them like a sword, slashing and cutting, spewing them forth as daggers at whomever I feel to be the current foe. Then, when the volcano of verbiage has erupted, when it is left empty and the ashes cooled, I feel...well, liberated.
It's so dangerous to bottle up words, feelings, thoughts. They tend to grow into something that isn't rational. They eat at your soul from the inside out leaving you empty. Would it not be less painful to others if I didn't hold on to those words until they can only be expressed in a cloud of hurt and anger?
Interesting, isn't it? That I would say being full of your own thoughts leaves you feeling empty? That purging the poison leaves you feeling full? Perhaps full and empty are misnomers in this instance. Yet, I don't have another word that fits for either case.
I can spend a lot of time analyzing myself. Not necessary, I suppose. You don't need me to tell you that I'm fickle, or moody, that I can be spiteful and sometimes downright mean, that I have no patience for those who intentionally keep themselves ignorant of the truths in life.
Yet, here I sit, often ignoring my own truths. Like the fact that sometimes I overreact to something that is, in fact, much less complicated than I've made it out to be. Or, that sometimes I say things that I shouldn't because, while they may be true in that particular moment, they're not overall, all the time, the real and consistent truth.
When I'm hurt and angry I tend to view the world, the circumstances, in a very distorted way. It's almost like wearing glasses with cracked lenses. Things that seem far away are, in actuality, right under my nose. Warning! Objects in mirror are closer than they appear...
But, that's life sometimes, isn't it? If you think of your brain kind of like a file cabinet, all the experiences, hurts, and things that make you who you are, all tucked away neatly, compartmentalized into neat little rows that somehow make it easier to deal with yourself.
Imagine then, that someone has taken that file cabinet and dumped it all in the floor. This file is mixed in with that file, no order. Chaos that brings that little panicky feeling to the back of your throat. You feel it choking you and you don't know where to start to put everything back together.
Then, some jerk steps in and throws a few more of your files in the floor. What do you do? Where do you go from there?
I come here. I lay it all out, bare and naked, for the world to see. I sort through the words until they all fall into place again. Until all my files have been restored to their proper place and I can, once again, breathe.
