There is No Escape in Writing

Throughout my life, writing has been a method for me, therapy to sort through my garbage--to take it out, look at it and determine if there is anything in the rubble worth keeping and cleaning. My writing in this context always addressed my problems. Journaling, writing exercises, creative exploration, word art, dream boards--all systems to reach the core me.


In the last couple of weeks, I've been pummeled with a personal crisis. It feels as though there is no time to journal and when the time is available, I want to sleep instead of dig in my trash. Much of this trash isn't even mine, but shoveling through it will still uproot painful things about myself, things I've been unwilling to address. Up until now, any spare moment in my life, after caring for my family, has been expended finishing my current work; my book, which has healed an entirely different portion of my life from a distant time and place.

Attempting to write about pain in the now, or even write through it and despite it, has forced me to evaluate the parallels of myself--my mind, my methods, my life. I'm not trying to bury the current circumstances. I'm not stuffing the pain into a box or down my throat in the form of Krispy Kremes. I am sitting in the pain with all of my being, letting the bile rise, my hands shake and my mind crack just a bit.

But what I've begun to realize is that when faced with a personal crisis, most people can simply rise in the morning and lose themselves in their work or a project. Not a writer. A writer cannot lose himself when he works.  A writer finds himself in his work.