The Thing About Writing
The time reads 3:53AM and I can hear the sprinklers outside as I'm writing this, and I have a feeling I'm going to hate myself in a few hours when the sun rises.
The breeze picked up as the sun pulled its final rays under the cloud-dotted horizon. “Do you still write often?” he asked.
“Not as often as I would like,” I admitted ruefully. And then something distracted us both and the topic was dropped.
But on the way home in the dark, my mind flitted back to that brief moment. I turned off my music. Why wasn’t I writing as often as I would like?
Time shouldn’t be the issue. No, that wasn’t it. I’ve always believed that if you truly tried and cared about something, you can always somehow find the time. I mulled. And mulled some more. And then I stopped lying to myself, because I’ve known all along that writing naturally draws some inspiration from one’s personal life, which in turn reveals ragged holes of vulnerability that I just wasn’t ready to face or share with others.
“But vulnerability can be a weakness or a strength – it’s your move,” I once had actually written down on a napkin for reasons I now can’t remember – nor can I remember what had happened to that napkin. Maybe my new challenge this year is to learn how to be okay with my own vulnerability and to stop building walls around myself that even I, not to mention anyone else, have trouble chipping away. Maybe.
The light was on in the driveway. On auto-pilot, I had found my way home. “I’m back!” I called out, tossing my keys aside, and I promptly forgot the thoughts that I had been gnawing on for the past half hour.
Until now.
The time reads 3:53AM and I can hear the sprinklers outside as I’m writing this, and I have a feeling I’m going to hate myself in a few hours when the sun rises. 
