Wednesday, November 18, 2015

to be me

You tried to change didn’t you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer

prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do, love
split his head open?
you can’t make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.

Warsan Shire, "For Women Who Are Difficult to Love"

I can't be who I am not. I have never tried to be otherwise. Perhaps I should learn to compromise, but I think I'm too old and set in my ways to start now.

of finding comfort in the little things

Now I understand what people when they say they draw comfort from the company of their pets. These days I find something oddly peaceful in sitting quietly, reading or writing, with my little dog curled up beside me. I find myself less anxious, less stressed, although I still harbor the same fears and insecurities. I don't know if it has something to do with growing more mature or maybe it's just that I have learned to accept my circumstances. I don't feel so restless anymore.

Monday, November 9, 2015

fumbling for words

So. Three years after my last post in my other blog, I feel the urge to write again. Write for the sake of writing. Write for the sake of letting my feelings and thoughts out and not merely to meet another deadline.

For the past several years, even when I was more active here in fact, I was already writing to make a living. I was ghostwriting essays and editing journal articles here and there. In the intervening years,  I took on a fuller load and began to neglect writing for the pure pleasure of seeing the words in your head out on a page, to clear my thoughts and to hash out whatever it was that was clashing in my head at a certain time.

At the beginning of the peak season this year, I began to feel the jadedness set in. I felt as though my writing skills, such as they were, have began to be become blunted. I remember that I used to deliberately use banned words and write run-on sentences whenever I wrote my blog entries just so I could get out of the imposed constrictions of my writing and editing job. But then I became distracted with other things and before I knew it, writing was no longer a pleasure for me. It became tedious, something that I needed to do so that I could pay my bills, put food on the table, and survive. Writing took on the same hue as my other job, one that I had grown out of for a very long time but still cling to because I am indecisive that way.

And then the other day, I was cleaning my desk drawer and came upon a piece of paper where I had began to write something about my conversation with my mom  on my birthday. On the first line, I had written, I need to write for the sake of writing again. I feel like I am losing touch with who I am and instead have become buried in needless things. And I thought, I need to find me,  I need to be able to write just so I can get in touch with the M who was more attuned to herself and not the M who allows the days to breeze past her. Hopefully, this is the start.