2/23/09
At Merrion Square

Maybe I was avoiding writing for so long because it's like any other habit: the more you do it, the more you want to do it. Until it keeps you up at night. Until it steals your appetite. If this is my habit, the happier I am for it. I talk, and all I want to do is write. I read, I want to write. I also think that the Virgo in me (so funny how I identify myself that way) was noticing that what I was writing wasn't good...enough...for the perfectionist critic...me...

But I think now, I've learned this lesson, a big life lesson that might also apply to relationships, romantic and otherwise, if they are strong. You love it, you do it no matter what. The good, bad, boring, inane, pointless, stifling, insulting, you do it anyway. So I write, through the mediocrity, right on to brilliance. You still the contributing, uninvited yet obsessed-over voices, you call forth your own strong, clear voice and you commence. This is what I do, it's what I love. This IS me.

My face mashed into my forearm, I write with my eye-line level to the page. Something I've always done. I look like a maniac. I feel like writing is the same quirk, something I've always done. It is deeply satisfying, to scratch a page with my pen again.