When my fingers hit the keyboard, I realized I was home.
How could I have gone so long without writing?
It has, and continues to occur to me, that there is a sweet spot... a time and place where a pen to page is a life preserver to the fallen. But sometimes the urge to kick dissipates. It’s hard to grab that floatation ring when your arms are tied with seaweed.
And there is another side to things... once you are back in the boat, or on the shore, drying off and shaking the water from your ears, recovery can include, for a time
— avoiding triggers.
"Writing can dredge up a lot of the same powerful feelings and emotions that once dragged you down."
You might be shy around water for a while.
Sure, you will find yourself in the depths again, and yes, you can become more equipped to deal with higher tides; maybe taking some swimming lessons or grabbing a life vest for the first few trials. But it’s perhaps not a good idea to take up scuba diving before you learn to snorkel.
Writing can dredge up a lot of the same powerful feelings and emotions that once dragged you down. It can trickle in at first like water through a crack in a canoe, and you, without a bailing bucket soon find yourself wet with memories of the past and little to make due — or worse, the wave can come crashing in like a tsunami, when all you wanted was to explore a little creatively.
This does not mean that writing or journaling should be avoided — on the contrary; they are lifelines. But there are different sized flotation devices for a reason. It often takes time and practice to master even the simplest of therapeutic tools.
Have you ever seen an adult try to swim with a child’s set of water wings? A ridiculous display of laughability, to be sure, but an unenviable form of water safety, certainly. If that adult never learned to swim as a child, it makes the process all the more difficult.
And so, I realize, my inability to write is in a way a subconscious self-protective strategy.
We have all experiences at one time or another, wounds that were too fresh; burdens that were too much; feelings that were just... too close.
I am not yet drowned.
At first I couldn’t see my way for the salt in my eyes, and then I couldn’t express how that salt felt because I ran as far from the sea as possible.
It's time to return to the ocean.
I don’t have to grab a surf board just yet — I can sit on the shore and feel the sun on my skin; build a castle in the sand and listen to the beach sounds.
Maybe I can just... dip my toe...
The water is warm.
It's good to be back.
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