Day one.
Dipping my big toe back into the world of writing.
Just about as timidly as I would dip it into the cold water of my grandmother’s pine tree-shaded pool on the first warm day of spring.
And, just like that cold water, I know it’s best just to plunge in deep and fast and not look back.
The shock to my system will pass, and the water will warm, and eventually, I’ll swim so fast I won’t feel the cold. I’ll know it’s warmer to stay in the water.
Writing is like that when it’s been a while.
The words are there, deep in the parts of my mind that have been put on hold, buried under the weight of worry, where things left unsaid become things you’re afraid to say. To voice them is to make them real, bring them to life, give them power.
Or at least that’s the lie we tell.
Voicing them actually loosens the grip they have on us.
So, I have.
I have sat across from friends, over steaming cups of coffee, and said the things I fear. We have looked at the future, like looking at a map, then folded it up and put it back on the shelf of the unknown, trusting it to the one who knows all.
But to put those words into writing?
That’s another thing entirely.
In writing, there’s a record.
In the long days of radiation treatment, my husband, the man who breaks things down into numbers, not syllables, wrote. He poured his questions and the answers into something he could share.
I bottled mine up, placing them firmly on the back shelf of my mind, like the pitiful pickles I made last summer.
They’re there, but I don’t want them.
Instead of pouring worry into words, I turned to other outlets.
I learned to carve blocks and create cards, prints, hand towels….anything that could be stamped probably was.
I decorated cookies and dove deep into the world of sourdough starters and homemade bagels.
But I didn’t write.
I couldn’t.
Forget the eyes. For the writer, words are the windows, and I didn’t want my soul seen.
It’s strange to think of it now.
Why was I hiding?
What did I think people would see if I opened the windows wide?
Did I fear they would see faith fail?
Did I worry that, unlike Mary, she who believed would not receive?
No, I don’t think that’s it at all. I did write some words on the wall of a private Facebook group that prayed and supported and encouraged through the dark days and celebrated on the sunny ones.
Perhaps that’s the thing: privacy.
It’s been three years since my husband’s first treatment. Five since his parents moved into our house.
Those years included COVID and isolation, and everything turned inward.
The battles I fought were their battles.
The struggles I faced were because of their situations.
The freedom to write about my feelings was overshadowed by the desire to protect theirs.
Both of his parents are gone now. He celebrated his first Christmas without them, and my children missed their grandparents. I brought his mom to the table in the dressing she taught me to make, and my daughter created a book of memories for her dad.
And, as our family goes back to using the living room as such instead of as a makeshift apartment for his parents, little bits of our lives come back to us.
Changed.
And so am I.
I don’t know what stories to tell. Just that I am ready to start telling them.
So, I’m writing. At least one word every day. Some will be published. Others won’t.
But they will be written.
