Sometimes a Man's Don't Gotta Do...

You fight it. You deny it. In the end you come to accept it. You’re a writer. You may not be very good, you may have little insight, but you write anyway because you’re a writer and that’s what you do. You need to write. When you try to deny the urge it dams up inside you like constipation until you know that if you don’t release it you’ll encounter grave physical consequences. So you give in. You sit down and expunge all the things have been swirling around. You know that by writing you can bring some order to things. You can lay them out, give them structure, see how they relate, or don’t.

I never wanted to write. I hated the idea. Writing was mom’s job. I wanted to go out and do things. I wanted to make things happen and let other people report on it and decide what in meant. I’ve become a lot of things I never wanted. I wasn’t going to become an academic, I wasn’t going to teach, and I certainly wasn’t going to write. Basically I wasn’t going to become my family. Then I was. Now I am.

Sometimes your need to write overrides your better judgment. It’s important to know when to write for yourself alone. I sometimes struggle with the difference between writing to express something to the world, and writing to clear out my head. The result is that I run the risk of posting something that could hurt someone. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t often care about stirring the drink a bit. That said I’ve realized that not everything has to be said in a public forum. So, I’ll close with this, I’m sorry Miss K. If you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about, it’s not important. What’s important is knowing when to stop typing.