It's been years since I dared sit to write. I have scribbled and scrabbled my way through some tough circles around the sun, but never risked a proper sit-down: a head-on collision with my life. It hasn't been a lack of being present or existence in denial -- it has simply been a time that has eclipsed actual language.
To my mind, I've reached a point where the bleeding has slowed. There is still a need for constant pressure on the wound, one which could drain my life, but I can look up, look around, take stock of my surroundings. Ernest Hemingway purportedly said that there is nothing to writing "-- just sit down at the typewriter and bleed." Some passage of time had to take place for me to invite that different kind of bloodflow.
I'm keenly aware that my everyday orbit is comprised of the walking wounded, and most of them have done what they need to do in order to keep moving, breathing, carrying on a semblance of living. There's nothing special about me. Nothing unique about my pain. Nothing new in my odyssey. People who have survived the unsurvivable have come into my life, and I could be shamed by the generosity of their love and openness, if I had not learned the cost.
My days are packed with the energy of high schoolers battling for identity/voice/calling, and my evenings are spent in friendship that balances and fills me. It's a place of still waters, restoring me for the storms ahead.
It may be that when the bleeding slows, when the writing starts, the beauty becomes loud and begins to eclipse all else... it may be a prelude to deeper grief. I'm hoping that beauty wins.
