My family can tell you that I always had my nose in a book from about 5th grade on. It started with Where the Red Fern Grows. I think it was the first book that caused me to cry. Bridge to Terabithia in the sixth grade was the first to elicit a sob.
In the seventh grade there was talk about a book in the library that was full of sex so, naturally, I checked it out. It must have been in the Spring because I remember reading it on the back patio. My mom was sitting near me reading her bible while I sat there with eyes as big as saucers reading Clan of the Cave Bears. I just knew she would find out what I was reading. How could she not see my eyes darting from the book to her? She had to have at least heard the loud beating of my guilty heart - my tell-tale heart.
In Junior High books were an escape. An escape from the anguish of a life I felt I had no control over. Fear and dread and loathing melt away when you can immerse yourself in someone else's story. If that story was filled with fear and dread and loathing it was at least not my own.
All throughout high school I devoured words - essays, poems, autobiographies, novels, cereal boxes, sugar packets. Seriously, anything with printed words that was within reach I consumed. Eventually, I started to let words spill out of me and into a diary and timidly into letters to my grandma Opal.
During my first stint in college I quit reading for pleasure - I was reading textbooks; so many dry textbooks. Unwilling, or unable, I'm not sure which, to read things I enjoyed I had one small outlet: writing. My friend Wendy and I got our first e-mail addresses which was perfect because Wendy was going to school in Bellingham. Our chats on her bedroom floor and under the large maple in her front yard moved to the computer labs at our respective schools.
These last two years since Mr. T started Kindergarten I have hungrily read (listened to) what feels like countless books. Everything from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy to Les Miserables.
It has been in the last couple of months that I have taken to writing again - just for me. There is something so cathartic about seeing your words turn blue at the end of the pen as your hand helps give them shape. With a friend, sometimes two, I share even more words in the form of long emails. I am giving a little piece of me that I keep hidden from most everyone - it is the chaotic and messy truth. As the swirling thoughts in my head and ache in my heart make their way to paper, to my journal, to this blog, the confusion clears and the aches of my heart dull a little.
Sometimes I'm the one receiving the words from a friend. As they speak or write their truth to me and I try on their pain or shoulder a bit of their burden, just as they have done of mine, we are building and reinforcing the foundation of our friendship.
I wish I was more articulate with the spoken word and didn't have to rely so heavily on writing my feelings down to feel heard and understood. When words fall from my mouth they do just that: fall. Flat and one dimensional and incomplete. I usually say too much as I think if I throw out enough words I will eventually utter the right ones or I say too little as words elude me. At least with the written word one can write and erase and delete and perfect and polish the thoughts before bundling them up and gifting them to a friend.
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