Sometimes life is really exciting. Actually, let me rephrase that. Life is exciting if we are looking at it through the right lens. And sometimes, what is exciting is also kind of scary. And exhausting.
About a year ago I started writing a story of sorts. It started in a writing class, but continued on my own because it was a good way to process memories for me. You see, it is about a group of people and a period of time in my life that I did a really good job of running away from and not looking back at, with the exception of one friendship that graces my life with its presence from time to time. Anyhow. Someone read part of it and then passed it along to someone who read it and got in touch with me to tell me that if I keep writing it like it were going to be a book, they would help me make it so. I have always enjoyed writing, but never considered it as a career. Or as a hobby I let other people in on. But the idea is intriguing to me. And recently I have started to seriously consider the option of being a freelance writer, at least on the side, and what sorts of doors that would open for me. So, I have decided to write a book. Now that the idea is planted, I am curious to see how far it goes, but am writing without focusing on the outcome.
It exhausting though. I generally as a rule don't spend a whole lot of time sitting with periods of my past. But this involves hours of reliving it. Of putting myself back there and sorting through snippets of conversation, of digging up people in my mind, remembering all their quirks and endearing traits, filling in holes the way I think it would ring true to life, and acknowledging emotions and choices I made that I have never fessed up to and am not necessarily proud of. It's like free therapy. And a little like culture shock every time I finish another segment and come back to the present to find myself in my living room, in my home, in a self that I love and respect and am more comfortable than I ever would have dreamed of at the time this project stemmed from.
What.
A.
Fucking.
Trip.
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