Coming Out

After years of avoiding the dormant writer inside me, I find myself left with no choice but to seek her out and encourage her to speak.  I'd hoped for more altruistic reasons, but what it comes down to is that the knot in my heart forces me to speak or implode.

When I was in grade school I was a precocious writer, and I wrote cute little poems which my teachers made much of, which was embarrassing, but not entirely.  In second grade I won the Poet of the Month contest, based on published writing in the school paper - The Chatterbox.

At the other end of the spectrum -  home - I had begun to use writing to express the despair I was feeling as my family was falling apart,  loudly and sloppily.  What I  wanted most at that time was to be a hippie, but was a couple of years too young for the late 60s.  I made up for some lost time in the 70s, when one of my goals was to try to use very drug there was in New York City.

Since I'd gone to a progressive high school, not much was made of conventional life planning.  I decided to delay college (with little opposition).  I like to think I would have done that differently, with the benefit of hindsight, but maybe not.

But, getting back to the silenced one, it has taken some extreme life circumstances to get me to let her loose and speak her truth, after a lifetime of censorship.  There are some strong currents at work in opposition as well, which I often mistake for the reasonable voice of self-discretion, which can shut me up really fast.  It feels extremely unnatural to me to open myself to these feelings, when, for so much of my life I have judged them as unacceptable.  But then, that wasn't working so well either...

So now, I set an intention to open to myself to lost, young girl, to listen when she speaks, without the judgement and criticism with which I have always scared her away.

Recently, I was invited to write from the part of me who has committed to living and learning for all these years, developing self responsibility and, yes, wisdom, and to write it as if I really believed what I was saying.  No self abnegation, no doubt,  only my well considered words put into the void.

I hope.