The Practicality Of Being Insane

People have often asked me what it is I love so much about writing. It's no secret that my means of survival include little more than a journal and pen. There's something so simple and pure about it, something so perfectly charming about the way each word looks on the page. I love to feel the curve of the letters beneath the tip of my pen as my hand spirals and glides. I always tell people I find it therapeutic.

The truth is, it drives me crazy. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not, my writing constantly pushes me to the brink of insanity. I could never really understand how people could make it through a day without writing. I wondered where all of their thoughts would go. Perhaps these ideas are floating around in the world. Perhaps they're whispered into the summer breeze, hovering above us like birds in flight. Perhaps with each step we take, we move in and out of another person's head, taking on their thoughts as our own. People must have thought the things I think before I arrived here. Isn't every idea simply the extension of an idea already had? Sometimes it seems desperately impossible to be original.

Even my own ideas seem to feel like things I've thought to myself before. I talk myself in circles. Most of my life works that way, cycles of emotions I feel time and time again. The truth is, I miss the insanity. I'm happy to be writing again, no matter how jumbled everything in my head may be. I once asked my father if I could see a therapist, and he told me that I was the most sane person he knew, adding, which is probably why you would need one. Being sane can drive you absolutely crazy.

I worry that my over analytic nature will eventually lead to my demise. I don't ever realize that I'm angry or sad until I put it down on paper, until I can physically see my depression. And that only makes me feel more down. Shouldn't a person know what they're feeling just by feeling it? Why can I not see myself for who I am? I'm only aware of what's inside of me when I bring it to the surface. I shouldn't need to watch my life from a mile away to appreciate it. I should be experiencing it. I feel like I know who I am, but I can't live like the person I am. I know that probably doesn't make sense, but the nice thing about emotion is that practical sense only seems to get in the way. I am sensible, but I live by my heart, not by my head, and the moment my head gets involved, everything becomes that much more difficult. That's the challenge of writing, of interjecting your head into your life. That's why I love it. It helps me grow.

I just feel as though I've been neglecting key moments in my life recently. I think in large part it's because I've stopped writing. So I'm making my grand return to the realm of artists, where beauty and thoughts run rampant. I'm ready to once again be ridiculous and creative and honest. I find that now I have so much to say, and I appreciate those of you who are willing to listen to my endless blather. Thank you for entering the inside of my head. I promise it will be quite the adventure.

Tonight I'll go home and remove my journal from it's stagnant place upon my shelf. I'll open to a new blank page, and there, the story of my life shall play on as though it never skipped a beat. There, I'll be reborn once more.