bring back write-y

I don't remember when I stopped writing in longhand. I remember swearing I would always write things out with a pen so that they felt realer somehow. So that I could watch my handwriting become as frantic or controlled as my mood allowed. If I saw it in ink then it was permanent instead of something I could backspace on a computer and delete forever. Whatever that feeling was, it was important enough for me to grab a notebook. That I was important enough to be heard even if I was the only one listening. This specific notebook that I am transcribing from has vampire teeth on the cover. How fitting.

Do you remember when we were younger (for me it was 10-17) and our creativity and emotions were so fierce and insistent that there was no way to ignore them and the only way to set yourself free of them was by crying or writing or painting or fighting? There were not enough words in the English language for me to even remotely convey my feelings. I had to LITERALLY read the thesaurus much to the thrill of my high school English teachers just so I could bring justice to the shit swirling around my head. So I could even tell myself how I felt because hell if I knew until I looked down at a piece of paper and saw an entire poem I had scrawled.

Somehow as the years have gone by that urgency has waned. That intense obligation to write down all I feel is still there somewhere but it does not come out to play often. Usually it just gets bottled up and displayed inappropriately towards like the Wawa guy or a slow car in front of me on the freeway. Those moments where I stared blankly at chalkboards and teacher's faces because a story line was developing and begging to be written is no longer present. I used to legitimately have to yell at myself to stay focused and stop writing character outlines in my head - instead I cry at Dove commercials.

Where does that go? How do I get that again? Who can I bargain with to take back that annoying pull in my fingers to write! To create! To purge!

I remember thinking how annoying being a writer was. It was such a boring thing to be when all my friends got to be pretty or sporty or slutty. I got to be write-y. That went over real well with the boys.

I thought it was a waste to be write-y and for years I didn't even consider it an option. I just thought everyone did it. Didn't all 11 year olds write epic poems and elaborate stories?

No dumbass, they didn't.

And probably right around the time I admitted to myself and embraced my write-y-ness it somehow decided to fade away and I was replaced with other ordinary adjectives that I didn't want anymore. Somehow the older I got the more boring the adjectives got. Who would have thought your hidden teenage adjective would be the one you would try to get back in your adult life?

Bring back the write-y. She's sexy now. I promise!