Words
I have never been afraid of words. They constantly reverberate around me and within me. Ideas that get formed into thoughts that create images and then dissipate into the cloud that is my mind. What I have been cautious about is distributing these words to others - to allow my words, which are representative of me, to be vulnerable to others.
I have been writing almost since I learned how to write. From Class 5, I started to journal. I don’t quite remember who encouraged me in my early days but I have journals documenting my best friends and my “worst day of my life” posts like my parents so not getting me…sigh. I developed the love of translating the storm within me into consumable words on a paper in Class 7, first through poetry and then eventually started writing fiction. There’s this story that I have been attempting to write inconsistently for the last decade and a half. Fifteen years. It’s not particularly good. It’s not even a story that I want to tell anymore but it is the longest piece of anything that I have written and a fully conceptualised story. But that’s most of my writing of fiction. Unfinished attempts of being an author. I have more abandoned stories in my folder than are finished.
But when it comes to writing out my thoughts, pieces that are nonfiction, I am unafraid to write. I’ve always been unafraid to write. In fact, it is writing that had led me to be fearless and thoughtful, reflective and forward-thinking. They are basically a word-vomit of thoughts onto paper (or computer).
Now take these words, that I love so much, that I can breathe into and they breathe life to my thoughts, when I have to verbally articulate them to others, I forget what words are. Whether in-person or through any other medium. Most of my thoughts and arguments remain inside my head; tumbling around, arranging and re-arranging to come out as perfectly comprehensive and succinct sentences. Except I never get to this last step. The anxiety of what will the person in front of me think. Will I truly be able to articulate what I mean? Are my words really adding anything to the world of words? All these thoughts then take over the original purpose of the articulation. And before I know it, the moment is gone, and I am left silent.
I have always written for myself. When I think of putting my writing out there, it’s terrifying. But sometimes being terrified and taking a step anyway might be a good thing.
Maybe?
