PERSONAL ESSAY
Write!
Where Caring Meets Measuring
God dang it, it really has been a while since I’ve written something. At this pace I won’t be able to beat last year’s record of writing. But then again, who cares.
I do.
I think almost every time I ask that question I never really form it as a question in my head. Like I seem to refer the “Who” to myself. Like “Who” cares? meaning “I” care. So, it wasn’t much of a question after all.
But then again, caring about the work and measuring it is a whole different thing. Me wanting to write because I love this form is a whole different thing than me wanting to publish more writings than I did last year.
Last year I published about 35 writings. 35 random essays, stories, and poems that somehow folded themselves into a ball of thought and went out of my head. It’s almost the middle of March now and I’ve only published 4 writings.
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It’s not that I have to publish it, but posting it feels like I stamped the journey I was in. I love re-reading what I wrote. I love experiencing those feelings again-or hell, being reminded I once felt those types of feelings or having those type of thoughts. It’s a really really cool thing.
So, I don’t know why I haven’t published as much. For sure it wasn’t because there are fewer thoughts and feelings. If anything, there might be more where those came from.
Maybe they haven’t found their way out yet. Or even maybe they haven’t folded themselves into a form that I could see in my head and pour it out into the world. Or maybe, maybe there wasn’t even a shape to be formed after all. Maybe it’s just thoughts and feelings floating around screaming in my head waiting for their turn to be finished, and not to live between drafts and notes as this unfinished sentence of ideas.
Which is not the best place for a writing to live. Because a writing — as we usually count it — is only a writing when it’s shared. When it’s finished. Because what good is a story if it doesn’t have a place to deliver itself?
But the act of writing itself starts way before that. The experience itself starts before you even do the actual writing. And maybe those were the parts that I keep forgetting. The parts where I haven’t even started writing.
So, I don’t know. Maybe last year was the year of publishing, and this year could just be… the year of writing quietly.
Then maybe the question shouldn’t be “Will I beat last year’s number?”
I think it should be…
“Will I still be someone who writes?”
