I Write

I don't have anything particular to say today. I don't even have any particularly entertaining stories to tell. Still, I have a desire to write. 

A few years ago I was having a rough day. I don't remember all the particular things that happened, but it was more difficult to manage than a normal day because I'd pulled a muscle in my neck and it was quite painful. After teaching a dance lesson with a friend I was more sore than before, and was discussing this with him as I walked out the door of his house. I remember that I was carrying an empty cake pan. 

Somehow, our conversation turned to something serious. This isn't surprising - we talked about anything and everything, which was, on that particular day frustrating for me. Having someone to talk to is great, but emotional intimacy often breeds deeper feelings that can be near impossible to manage in a strictly friendship setting. As my friend talked I said nothing. I had no desire to tell him that he was toying with my emotions, and so I started to cry. 

He thought I was crying because my neck hurt, so he took the cake pan out of my hands and started massaging my shoulders and neck. This didn't particularly help the situation, so I started to cry even more. He turned me around, and hugged me, and let me cry. I couldn't tell him way I was so upset, so he suggested that I write, to get it out. 

When I got home I took out paper and wrote about my day. I wrote about my sore neck, and the dance lesson, and my friend. Of course he had been right, I felt better.  

My neck isn't sore today, but I have a few other random physical ailments, and some big decisions weighing on my mind that, again, are making my days more difficult to handle than usual. This time, I write. I write because I've learned that off-loading my emotions onto another person is neither safe or fair. I've re-trained myself to desire prayer or writing over human comfort. I've learned to let me emotions go - go to God in prayer, go into music I play, go into ink on paper, or typing on a screen -  rather than just putting them in someone else's hands.