I’ve started and trashed a number of projects over the last six months, signs of increasing mania, to be sure, but also as distraction. I kept telling myself that each project was going to be my return to myself, my triumphant return to writing after a terribly long and broken hiatus. My chapbook was published last year, but I essentially stopped writing except for in spurts and stops in 2021 after a flurry of individual publications. Likely, I had burned myself out trying to stay relevant in a literary sphere. Even more likely, I was also burned out socially, mentally, and professionally. Stretched thin, there was no room for anything else, much less something like processing and healing from all the life changes I was experiencing (i.e. divorce, friend loss, ECTs, all the rest). I also went off my medication around this time, something I hadn’t connected to my writing at all until recently. I just always figured it would return to me when the time was right. Now, I think it has always been waiting for me to return to it.
My first blog was called Chaos & Words, and it was a mess of a place, but I dearly loved it. I met so many other bloggers and writers in the blogging community, too. It was a safe place. It was my space.
I have what can be considered an unquiet mind. I’ve known I’m bipolar since 2018 but I’ve only recently learned that I have bipolar I rather than bipolar II due to the prominence of mixed episodes (depression with mania) I experience. I also learned that many symptoms I’ve had (irrational anger, delusions, paranoia) are signs of psychosis. My previous doctors threw a cocktail of medication at me whenever a new episode occurred, never explaining what it was I was experiencing. I’m now slowly getting back onto medication with the guidance of a psychiatrist who was so thorough, careful, and patient with me that I simply sat stunned after our first session. I don’t think I’ve ever known that level of care before.
Which brings me back here. Journaling has never felt quite enough for me, feeling too much like talking to myself, feeding the cycles of my brain that are forever buzzing with chaos. Blogging, to me, always felt more like talking with a friend – when they are able and willing to listen. While I am desperately wanting to work on my new full-length poetry collection, I think I need a safe space to process and heal, too. I read Nic Antoinette’s recent newsletter (“The Great Return”) this week where she discussed self-abandonment and returning to her daily devotions. She writes:
But today is the first day of spring (!) and in the coming spring I can already feel that I am craving something different. I am craving The Great Return — a reunion with all of the little things I love to do for me and me alone. What will bloom in these next few months? How can I belong to myself more fully than before? What will I tend to with my daily devotion? What will I nourish with my attention, my presence, my curiosity, my love?
What would feel good?
This notion of returning after wandering away from the self struck home, and I certainly consider writing to be one of my daily devotions. So here I sit – tending to my thoughts, my feelings, nourishing my words and my life. I am present and curious, and this… this is something I’ve greatly missed.
My boyfriend and I recently had dinner with his parents for their 45th wedding anniversary (!) and we got to discussing ghostwriting – the question of who is the person writing the words. I confess I have not read much of Nora Roberts but her name came up as she has quite a prolific library of work. My boyfriend’s mom mentioned Nora had written about ghostwriting, about how every piece of writing is her own, about the plight of plagiarism, and about her writing process. It was a fantastic read (Nora shoots it straight and is also very humorous), but here were her three pieces of advice for other writers:
- Stop making excuses and write.
- Stop whining and write.
- Stop fucking around and write.
Like Nora, I need structure and routine. It is, as she explained, my wiring. Where chaos reigns inside my brain, it is routine and structure that brings me back to myself, keeps me from self-abandonment. My biggest struggle with writing has always been a lack of routine around it. I would wait for inspiration to strike, and then I would put my ass in a chair and write. I made excuses, I whined, and I fucked around instead of writing. So I took Nora’s advice here, got out of bed an hour earlier, and am dedicating time to writing before I begin my day. I plan to do this every day until it sticks, becomes routine.
No more excuses. Maybe a little bit of whining. Chaos and words – welcoming me back home.
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