This is a problem.
It's not the first time I've recognized it as one...in fact, it's been a problem since I became not only a person but an e-person, the sort who puts her thoughts into the e-world, setting them free. The problem is I still feel ownership of my thoughts, even though I agree that they become public property once I let them go.
I write in Word documents that will never be published. That really should be enough. But knowing they will never be published means I pay far less attention to them. In fact, I write so that I can see what I think and feel., so much so that I usually end up drawing neat conclusions about events and thoughts when I publish. After all, we all want to know if I got something about of said events. So do I. So the word docs usually end up unpolished and inconclusive at best.
I still cry when I read them. Or maybe that is why I cry.
Writing in and of itself does little to solve problems. It's the painstaking and difficult thought process that evolves into a written piece which fixes me, even if only for a moment.
Take my oft-postulated-about ex-boyfriend. I know there are people (at least five) who would rather I never said or wrote about him ever again. I count amongst them in fact, but the truth is for every time I've mentioned him I've thought about him ten other times. Writing about him two years ago did not fix me as I hoped it would. Or dreamed it could. If anything, it left me a long and tattered string of evidence of love. Sick, destroyed, aching love.
My beloved Raj, whose hand I held as we buried his father this week, bears witness to this. I write about him almost as often and for just a gory a reason: our relationship is complex and intricate and has at times confused the daylights out of me. He would go to the ends of the earth for me, and as if that's not enough he's a good person.
So why write about either of them?
Writing is truth.
Writing cannot be unwritten, even though there is a delete button. I don't remember word for word the hundreds of blogs I wrote about them. But I feel them, the way a mother feels like her unknown child is out there. I created them, gave them life, set them free. I learned how to accept my love for both of them through writing. I fully developed my very final feelings about them in equal and telling ways.
So I write. When I am compelled, when it suits me and for any reason I please without regard to who may or may not see it I write. I write without cause or curse, without rhythm and never without passion.
I write because I am.