I’m afraid I may have forgotten how to write completely. Somehow over the years, the desire to put words to my thoughts, to flesh them out and give them some kind of tangible life, has morphed into the slightly (?) inane act of speaking to myself out loud. I wonder if that’s a shared trait—if perhaps the homeless man on the corner of 10th and Jefferson who mutters to himself at the bus stop would, if given a pen and a scrap of paper, prove to be a prolific writer. Maybe he’s just muttering all of his brainstorming, his nonsense drafts, aloud to the wind. Maybe he doesn’t even know.

Historically, I have written to make sense of darkness. When I have been sad, confused, angry, overcome by stress, and even drunk, I have used a pen and paper and the written word to get it all out. To give it order and meaning. I felt that it was my only real option, being unable to vocalize the things that tore at my insides and kept me up at night. Ah, so dramatic. When I’m happy, I don’t write. I have treated writing as a tool. I have taken advantage of it, used it, and given it nothing whole hearted in return. I have been thinking about this a lot lately. It’s been years and years since I’ve really written. At least five years; probably more like seven since my last two years in Connecticut were spent blogging (again, half-heartedly) and not truly writing. And the talking out loud, the feeling that I am losing my ability to effectively communicate it written form outside of the realm of memos and work-related reports, the fact that I am having a hard time communicating important feelings to my husband…I feel like I need writing again. And I want to be better to it this time. To take the time and write well, and frequently, about anything and everything—not just my darker moments.

This is my start.