What Happens When Writing Is No Longer an Emergency

With liminal ink

Prior to today, ive never asked myself if i was a writer or whether i wanted to be one.

Every time someone asked me, what my dream job would be, I’d half jokingly say, I’m sure i am already a writer, in some parallel universe.

But now that i have all this time to write, Im not so sure.

Earlier, I would attribute the reasons for not pursuing it seriously to my lack of skills, time, fear of failure and not having something important to say.

But I feel there’s something else to it.

Back then ive always written from a place of ‘survival’, a necessity. From a place, where thoughts in my brain have felt too complicated, too messy and daunting and the only way i knew how to control was puking it all feverishly onto a sheet of paper.

I didn’t even care to read it back again.

All i really cared about was it being out of my system - out of my mind. sometimes it felt like me trying to make sense of my inner world, sometimes like tying a hopeful, optimistic bow towards the end, as if re-assuring myself, other times as if to tell myself that the thoughts in my head are worth something - my inner world is worthy.

Now, when i have some awareness somewhat of my thoughts and feelings, i am able to look at them more clearly, sometimes recognising the noise, sometimes spotting the same old stories trampolining rhythmically, asking to be re-told and sometimes sitting still like rocks heavy with grief.

I often tend to dismiss quite a few of them as mere overwhelm ~ not feeling compelled to articulate it on a sheet of paper. Like an origami which has been practiced plenty of times before, the crane in the end, feels underwhelming.

While my writing takes its route through the town where nothing new happens, I am beginning to grow just as selective with my reading too.

I like to think that like all those who wander without a map, i seemed to have found myself in that liminal space, where my relationship with writing is transforming. It feels uncomfortable now, as does all changes feel in the beginning, but it’ll be interesting to see where it leads me, if i just choose to keep going.

bow tied neatly :)

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