whatever happened to my relationship with writing?

I don't remember ever learning how to write. It seems that expressing myself via the written word is something that I just knew how to do, from a very young age. Of course at school I learned about grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etc. But the ideas seemed to flow out of my head and onto the page with very little effort.

At one point, I think many people - my peers, my teachers, my professors, other adults in my life - assumed that I would become a professional writer of some sort. I think I believed that as well. After all, I gravitated towards it so naturally and I was good at it.

I loved writing. The process of formulating sentences and paragraphs to express my ideas was so rewarding. I loved the process and felt proud of the finished products. And it wasn't just writing to fulfill classroom assignments. As a teenager and young adult, my relationship to writing was very close, very personal, very necessary to the person I felt myself to be. Writing was one of the primary ways I coped with life's challenges. I could work out my feelings and thoughts on paper, giving myself solace, encouragement, and kindness in a way I didn't seem able to do elsewhere.

I loved to write letters too - actual ink on paper, handwritten letters - which immediately reveals my age to be over 40, I think. We moved around a bit when I was a child, so I learned early on that friends could stay connected through the written word. (Long-distance telephone calls were an expensive - and therefore rare - treat.) I reveled in reporting about my new school, the teachers, the kids, my new neighborhood, etc. I talked about current music and books and TV shows that I loved, my pets, my family, and most of all how much I missed the recipients of my letters. I liked to imagine them laughing at the parts I tried to make funny and getting a bit misty-eyed at the sad parts about being away from each other. I loved getting letters, too. There is nothing quite like the anticipation of waiting for a letter and the sheer joy when an envelope - with your name as the addressee -magically appears in your mailbox.

Of course, inevitably the flow of letters became slower and less frequent, eventually trickling away to zero as we moved on with our lives. But there were always new letters to write, and new recipients and senders to correspond with.

I also used to write just for fun. Essays, observations, haiku - all kinds of things that I rarely shared with anybody else. Notebook after notebook - where are they now? Sometimes I still do write the occasional haiku or couple of paragraphs, but it's become too rare.

For years now, my writing has been largely confined to writing for work. Instruction, persuasion, education, record-keeping, awareness-raising - sometimes pretty darned good - but not too often "from the heart."

Whatever happened to my relationship to writing? How did the passion ebb away? Most importantly, do I have the will to reclaim it as my own?

I could blame my (previous) crazy-busy life, when my children were young, I was working full-time, trying to complete post-graduate degrees, and struggling just to keep my head above water. And I did blame those circumstances for a lot of years. But I managed to attend a couple of writers' conferences and workshops during that time, where I encountered other mothers whose lives were likely every bit as hectic as my own, yet they managed to write at least a little bit, every day. They talked about waiting until the kids were in bed, then sneaking in an hour of writing between loads of laundry or other domestic chores. One might think my response would have been, "See - it can be done!" Instead, I thought that, if I wasn't finding the energy to "sneak in" a bit of writing, it was because I didn't really have anything to say. After all, if there was anything inside that just had to find its way onto the written page, it would.   

I beat myself up for being undisciplined, for lacking creativity, for not having the will to return to my previous impassioned relationship to writing.

And now, my life is much less demanding. My older daughter is in her 20's, my younger daughter just turned 18, and although they still occupy a large percentage of my mental and emotional space (and always will), there isn't nearly so much to do on a daily basis.

As with most things in my life that I say I want to do but am not actually doing, I think fear is the main culprit holding me back. I could go on forever writing things that nobody else will ever read. But deep down I am convinced that the writing is only half of the equation, and that it's not until another human being reads it that it is complete, or truly exists, or is legitimized, or something.

And the fear is that I have nothing to say that another human being would actually want to read. I know that I am reasonably skilled at conveying my meaning via writing - that's not the issue. The fear is that I have nothing new or original or meaningful to say. And so I remain silent.

This blog is a step towards renewing my relationship with writing. It will serve as a repository for all kinds of memories and thoughts and hopes and ideas, most of which I fear will be mundane or derivative or boring or ridiculous. But I hope there will be a few things that resonate with some reader, somewhere. And hell yes, I am seeking feedback! If something I say speaks to you, please let me know. If you furiously disagree with something I write, please let me know that too. Constructive criticism of my writing is also welcome.

Please keep hateful, mean-spirited or personal attacks to yourself. And if you're tempted to post them, think seriously about what it is about my blog that infuriates you so, and try to recognize that if it's affecting you that strongly, it's very likely about you and not about me.

The blog is called "Does anybody feel the way I do" to reflect the fact that I often feel alone in my thoughts and feelings. I chose the moniker "Dr. Ponder" because I have a doctorate in clinical psychology, and it seems that a lot of my mental energy is taken up pondering the world, more specifically why we humans do the things that we do. I'm rarely at a loss for hypotheses, but usually end up scratching my head and concluding that I will never really know.

Thanks for listening (reading).