Sometimes, when I’m processing emotions, life events, deep thoughts I write all the time. It helps me see the words in black and white and categorize my feelings into files, organized into neat little boxes with labels. And stacked and arranged alphabetically into filing cabinets in a storage unit. Writing often makes me feel like an organized type-A crazy person (there is one of those living in my house. And it’s probably not me).
But other times when my life feels messy and out of control, I avoid writing. Seeing real words detailing emotions to life’s events that I haven’t quite processed in my mind only makes it worse.
A few people told me they were waiting for a blog post about my grandmother who recently passed away. I still haven’t written anything, and being totally truthful, I probably never will. I haven’t dealt with her death yet in a way that would allow me to write about it. In many ways, I’m avoiding dealing with it. I haven’t talked about it thoroughly with anyone. I kept telling myself I had to process it, and then write about it—before I could talk through it with anyone. But I don’t know how to process it. Nor do I really want to. And so it sits.
