Just Write

Write pages. Write to better understand yourself and the world around you. The wisdom is conventional enough, although I’m not sure if its celebrity has grown the phrase to cliché status yet.

I’ve held a life-long struggle with writing. Many thoughts pass through my head on any given day. Thoughts that would surely convict me, or at minimum give the impression of a “bad person”. Amusing thoughts, musings, I call them. Like when a man calls me the B-word and asks if I’m going to call the cops on him. As though he was the first-ever person to call me one. His lack of awareness astounds me.

When I was younger, I had a diary. Unfortunately, I also had a mother who sought every means to dig deeper who also found said diary…often. My most vulnerable thoughts were read by a woman who would punish me for them. I learned to keep my thoughts to myself (and off of paper), which are what good girls are supposed to do anyway, I suppose.

After all, no evidence — no proof. Confessions are tantamount to evidence, so perhaps her invasive ways were setting me up for future success in life. After all, I have lived a life fuller life than many, perhaps.

My thirst for adventure has been limited by only time and money. If I can do it for little to no money or just happen to have the time, my first inclination is why not?

Recently, I received a life-threatening diagnosis no one wants to hear. The “it couldn’t happen to me” became “it happened to me”. The well-spring of conflicting feelings became a tornado of thoughts and emotions rolled into one. There’s the never-ending process of making decisions with not enough information. The dreaded Internet has as much conflicting information that it becomes overwhelming. Which statistic is faked? Can 40 and 80% success both be correct about the exact same thing? My logical mind says someone is pulling it out of their a-, eh hem, butt.

Time is of the essence when dealing with these matters and to increase the likelihood of positive outcomes. Yep, I’m now an outcome. Geez, I hope to God, I’m going to be a positive one.

My life has been dissolved to an outcome. I’m now part of an incorrect statistic somewhere. Patient #191236. Prognosis is good with treatment.

What a way to feel like my valued life that meant something is reduced to a speck of dust in the greater collective.

Along with an inquiring mind, “What is all of this crap they want to do to me and why? What are the side effects?” There’s the regret that I can’t help but face. If I didn’t self-medicate with alcohol earlier in life, perhaps… If I didn’t let that a**, um, clearly struggling broken person get under my skin, perhaps… If I didn’t have a diary that my mother would find, well, you get the idea.

Then there’s the regret of what I haven’t done. The times I chose to stay home instead of traveling locally to prevent another fight with my on-again, off-again boyfriend. How I verbally eviscerated him about my decision and my regret to stay home all of those days, when the gypsy voices in me were beckoning me to adventure. He’s been my rock through this, at least when we’re on again.

Someday, when I’m not chained to treatments, I know the voices will beckon. Given the weight of regret I now face as I take in my reflection, I know that, if indeed, I become a “positive outcome”, that fight will be awaiting me.

My speck of dust life will be a call to adventure. I hope I will have the fight in me this time.