Writing

What has writing done for me? Not reading others' writing, but the act of creating my own writing. It's an extremely pretentious question, and as someone who has never been published (never attempted to be published) outside of small newspapers, I haven't earned that pretension. I'm not a disciplined or regular or even very talented writer. Aside from the odd journal entry, I haven't written consistently in almost eight years. But I'm hurting. I hurt myself. I tell myself that I'm boring, unloveable, that I had potential but that I swandered the opportunity/ities to be the person who I want to be, that there's a certain kind of ideal but that those who embody that ideal got to know me and found me wanting. I have a vision of myself in my head and it's the worst possible version of who I could possibly be.

But if nothing else, writing - my writing - has shown me myself, at least a little. Reading through old entries, I like who I see - I like the thoughts I had, the experiences I had and the way I expressed them. I am smart. I am compassionate. I am thoughtful and caring. I like the person who wrote these entries. I put myself in situations to experience the world. Those aren't things that I imagined or pretended. Those are experiences that helped shape who I am and, if I choose, I can do that again.

My life now is comfortable in a lot of ways, but also extremely uncomfortable. I make a steady income (something I know not to take for granted), I live in a safe place, I'm close to family - life is, for the most part, steady...predictable. There are good things about this.

There are also bad things, if you're not careful. It's easy to stop challenging yourself and asking yourself what you really want. How can I challenge myself?