To Write or Not To Write?

I’ve been writing all my life. Not for someone else, not for publishing it, but just for myself. My notes are filled with journal entries after long whiskey nights, some unsaid poems to past lovers and many intimate willingly shared ones on email to my present lover, so many letters about a time in my life that I particularly don’t want to remember, some well written narrative articles, and my extensive thoughts, dreams and goals, all of above I will never publish.

At 10, I read a poem somewhere and I was extremely fascinated by it. At 12, I wrote my mom a very basic rhyming poem for her birthday and I’ve been writing since. Strangers can read my journals and notes and piece together my entire life. For the longest time, no one but my closest friends knew I wrote aggressively from time to time about all my stories, about everything in my heart.

But funnily enough, I’ve never been able to call myself a writer, I still don’t. When someone calls me a writer, I don't really know how to react and I subconsciously respond with, “I’m no writer, I just sometimes write”. I say that because I feel my words are only as good as what I feel about them. I can’t write like so many talented writers out there who make you feel things about everything they write, things they feel so much for and some they don’t feel much for but still succeed in making someone feel heard. For me, I can only write when I care too much, things I’m passionate about, that’s when my words tend to spark emotions. I write not because I can impart knowledge or share wisdom from my twenty-something years of existence, I write in the hope that someone out there feels a little less alone, feels seen through my seemingly unfiltered set character limit thoughts and the words that I string together.

I sometimes write to find my voice a little bit more. Other times, I write because it makes me feel in control of how I want to end my poem in this uncertain universe filled with chaos. I write because I want to see and understand myself evolve. I write to romanticise the little things. I write to cope.

But I’m no writer. I’m saying that again because the truth is, I couldn’t get myself to write something this week. No specific reason, I just wasn’t feeling passionate about anything. It's been one of those weeks that was both hard on my body and my mental health. Usually, I’d push myself to throw some well-put-together words around and try to make sense of it, but it would have come at an expense of me and I’m trying hard to focus on putting myself first and on doing things that are good for me.

So this is an article about why there is no article this week. The irony.

There’s freedom in being this honest though, to know it’s completely okay to just say, “I’m not feeling it, there’s no big reason why”.

Writing is very personal to me. Writing heals me. I’m learning to take it easy and accept that I can keep this part of me to myself when I don’t feel I have much to share. Because well, I’m no writer, I don’t find words. I need the words to find me and heal me.

Until they do, this is Varshini Raaj signing off.