There came a time when I discovered that writing while crying was a great consolation. Catharsis. Through scribbles on the inside of big people books at the age of 2 to writing make-believe stories in my journal in grade 2, writing was perhaps written in my destiny. Writing was to be my medicine and magic. What writing really was was the art of getting lost in my own mind.
There came a time when I realized that writing while crying was unproductive. I put all my emotions into writing when I was my most distraught, and then when the clouds of sorrow raised that art was already quenched. Little did my happiness become recorded in word. Little was my happiness embossed as a permanent marker for reminiscence sake.
Oh, I hoarded memories. Saved conversations, screenshots, notes folded in tiny little squares and stowed away where noone else could retrieve them. I hoarded every laugh and grin greedily, perhaps with a dark prescience that these were moments that would not last.
Maybe words were all I had. And they were not enough. And I discovered that I too was not enough.
Words, writing, getting lost in my mind fail to medicate or heal. Rather I myself have gotten lost. When words could not heal all the broken bits of me, my words ceased and I embraced silence.
Sometimes I look back at those scribbles in crayon, those half-formed words so carefully written and long for more than just solace but the ability to go back to a time when I could discover how to unconditionally belong.
