The Need to Write

Sometimes I feel like I just need to write. 

When I’m sad, when I’m happy, when I’m confused, when I’m excited… sometimes I feel like I just need to write.

Many times when I feel like I just need to write, I don’t have anything of importance to write about. I’ll dig deep inside, try to disentangle all the thoughts and stories inside of me, and find something worthy of letters. I think that’s why I blog so much about my feelings. They are the most accessible things for me to write about. They are always there, ready to be dissected and exposed to the world.

Writing connects me to people. I need that connection. Now more than ever because I have so few people who appear regularly in my day-to-day life. Can I blame everything on the Egyptian revolution? I want to. The sense of loss…loss of family…loss of friends…loss of purpose…loss of hope…loss of home…loss of work…loss of passion.

I make it sound horrible. I know it is not. Not always. Most of the time I manage to keep myself in a positive frame of mind. So much has happened in four years; in my personal and professional life, in Egypt, in the world. I cope by approaching life with tunnel vision. I focus on the one thing I feel I have some minor control over: me. I focus on the day-to-day. I give myself goals. I entertain myself. I give myself pep talks. I convince myself that my little achievements in life – like baking two dozen GREAT chocolate chip cookies, or getting a faster time in the weekly 5km race, or cycling up a really steep hill, or reading through an interesting book – I convince myself that these small things are really great things. I celebrate myself and my achievements. I share them with the world with a lot of hoopla. I wait expectantly and with pride for the congratulatory remarks. And when they come, I feel, in a sense, fulfilled.

Today is one of those days when I feel like I’ve lost control even over the small things. Pre-menstrual syndrome does that to you, you know. But yesterday I read that even those emotions are valid. When it feels like the world is ganging up on you when you’re hormonal, you need to look at what’s happening with you when you are not hormonal and see if maybe there are a few issues that need to be dealt with.

There are. I know what my issues are. I know what I’d rather be doing. I know what my needs are. But I also know what is realistic. I know the limitations. I know that I’m already doing everything I can to make my reality acceptable.

I don’t have much happening today. It feels like the end of the world. I’ve finished all my work. I can’t cook or bake because there are enough sweets in the house for at least two weeks and yesterday I made enough dinner for two days. I can’t run because my leg hurts. So I’m stuck with reading, which feels so unimportant to me right now. That’s how unimportant I’ve become: I have nothing to do but read. I remember days when I would be so busy at work that all I would dream of is to have nothing to do but read. Now that day is here, it feels awful.

I’m not looking for encouraging words. I’ll be giving them to myself in a few minutes time. I know how to pick myself up from this. I know that I have a good life.

I just felt that I needed to write.

I just felt that I needed to connect.