On writing

Last week (or maybe it was two weeks ago?), our modem broke, so we were without internet for a while.  I had two Project Runways to catch up on, so it may have been two weeks, but it felt like I'd gone a week without water. I'm seriously addicted to not only the internet but also tv. During the time off, I spent a lot more time playing with Daphne and also getting out of the house, so you know, it was probably good for me, for us. I have some noble friends that can abstain from such media, however, I'm not willing or possibly able to give up my stories.

I thought about how I needed to update this blog, which I will, for posterity. I mean, I want Daphne to read it when she's a teenager and all kinds of angry with me and see, "Oh. My mom was totally obsessed with me." Then I want guilt to torment her until she agrees that dating is really for people in their 30s and that she would actually prefer not to go away to college but instead decide that I'm her BFF and we'll run a homestyle bakery. From home. Many factors (including me learning how to bake) will have to precede this decision, but I'm really counting on that guilt to act as catalyst.

Anyway. As I thought about her tears falling as she happened upon pictures of her first birthday party, I realized I have to post those and tell a bit about that party even though it was weeks ago. Then I started to think about how writing this blog is really lacking in creative release for me. Then I realized the truth which is that I'm just not that creative anymore.

I used to write. In third grade, I wrote a pretty emotional and serious story about a girl who decided to have an abortion. The abortion was "botched" and the baby survived and this 15 year old girl and her child lived happily ever after, but it was precocious and I got a lot of positive attention for it. I always knew I would write. and I did. In college, I even decided to heck with the teaching certificate, I'll just make a living as a writer. Heheheh. Whoops. I did make money writing for a few years as a reporter for a small newspaper, and I enjoyed that. But, when I say I used to write what I'm really referring to is nights spent hunched over blue lined notebook pages, words spilling out of me, beautiful sentences, ugly sentences, words rising like bread, like Braille. I wrote like I breathed. I had to. I would read later what I wrote and be somewhat surprised by my syntax, by the way I captured exactly what I had felt.

I'm certain I had a knack for it. I was creative and vulnerable and skilled. I wrote for no audience and it's true that only few have ever read anything I wrote during those times.

I'm not sure when I stopped. Well. That's not true. I know exactly when I stopped, but it's complicated inside me. I stopped writing when I met Jon. This also means: I stopped writing when I stopped using drugs. I stopped writing when I became a Christian. I stopped writing when I stopped being depressed.

Again, I'm not certain what it was... Did I write because I was unstable? Did I write because it helped me in a therapeutic way? Was I writing because I was high all the time?

I don't know. Maybe a combination? All I know is this. Now, I do not write.

This blog then is unsatisfactory to me not because of the medium. I don't necessarily need blue lined notebook pages (I've tried those too to no avail). It's unsatisfactory because I'm unsatisfactory. I feel that everything I say has been said in the same way. Cliche after cliche. I know that I'm writing about my daughter, about my life, in a way that's personal to me, but I know that these are well-worn feelings, nothing unique is being described here. It's somewhat irritating, but I see no way out.

It's not like I'm going to trip on acid and see what happens. ;)

Instead... I'll keep writing here, capturing what I feel about my daughter, my family, my life, and hope that I learn to create something of value, something that I enjoy reading. Perhaps it's the audience that stays me from being creative, but the three people reading this shouldn't cause me to write so perfunctorily.

I don't know. While this is unsatisfactory it's not unsatisfying. I do enjoy having these thoughts preserved here, it's simply my clumsy methods that annoy. I'll keep trying and hopefully will have something great rise again.