Writing

A few weeks ago, a lovely little envelope arrived in snail mail that was actually real mail. I don’t know about you, but my heart just thrills anytime I receive actual, personal mail. (There would be a few qualifiers, but I won’t go into that.). When I open the mailbox and find a gem of a letter or card snuggled in among the catalogs, credit card solicitations, and coupons, I do my own little version of a touchdown victory dance standing right there beside the bank of mailboxes. (It’s okay; laugh if you must.)

I waited to open the little envelope until I had reached the kitchen counter and dispensed with the rest of the mail (trash compactor). Then, of course, because I’m Southern, I carefully cut a horizontal line straight across the top of the top of the envelope with my Sterling silver, monogrammed letter-opener. (No, not really. I tore into it with my veritably non-existent fingernails. I believe I own a letter-opener, possibly two, not silver and certainly not monogrammed. I have no idea where I put them.) My fingers liberated the card.  Then, my eyes quickly scanned it, and I smiled. Then, I reread it. Huh, but still smiling.

The card was from a long-time friend. Let me re-state that. The card was from a long-long-time friend, someone I’ve known more than 20 years, with a few years missing, but with many, many things in common. I’ll only share with you the “huh” part because -by now you’ve already figure this out – that’s what I’m writing about.   Not in her words exactly, but she commented that she thought I was brave to write about my personal life and share it with you on the internet. I was a bit confounded by this statement. No, that’s a lie. I was a great deal confounded by this statement, and it left me pensive for quite some time.

I’ve written about courage before and what I think it means.   While I appreciate that my friend was paying me a compliment, I do not, for a second, confuse writing with what several people I care about are doing this very second: standing between you and me in the face of a very great evil, that if it had it’s way, would destroy everything we believed in. Ok, that said, I still wondered at my friend’s assessment of what I was putting out into the world. If I was being brave in my openness, was I being too open and saying too much?

Honestly, my first inclination was to stop writing. Yes, I thought it might be a perfect time to flee to those towers I like to barricade behind. Step with me a moment, will you, into my imagination? In my mind I envision Shenandoah Valley Bluestone, built high up onto the mountainside, towering over the trees, too tall and too smooth to scale, one small window on the front from which I can look out over the landscape and choose to descend (or not.) If you’re thinking Rapunzel, either you’ve got kids, or you, like me, enjoy Disney’s rosy take on the world. So, you understand that, in my virtual world, I must have really long, thick hair with which to rappel that tower. This really would not be a good look for me; it’s a height thing. (Don’t look so surprised. Yes, I have been rappelling, though not using my own hair.) I’m going to have to come up with a different point of egress because the hair is going to have to go.

This, my friends, in case you do not recognize it, was (is) my typical fear reaction. When I write, I’m letting you in on my world, see parts of me that you might not have known, parts that aren’t polished and shiny, parts you may not like. In letting you know me, I run the risk that you will reject me, and rejection in any form is so very painful! (Raise your hand if you like to be discarded? Passed over? Just plain punted away?) I had to ask myself if this was what I risked every time I opened the computer. Then, something else occurred to me. For every 500 words I write, 1500 go unsaid. I build the frame for you, but I don’t necessarily paint the picture, not when it may really count, not when it may really hurt. How brave is that?

So, here’s a little (Truly, a little.) honesty about me: Let’s start with a basic assumption – I am a very complicated woman, (Spoiler alert: any woman over 25 is.) and work from there.

• My memory can be unreliable, but my mind goes about 500-miles-a- minute, often in different directions. So, I make lists, lots of them. I lose everything – like the letter openers – and it eventually turns up, but in the meantime it makes me crazy. This has everything to do with an injury that I had no control over, and that some 16 years later, I’m still struggling to accept. Read that this way: sometimes I get furiously, ragingly mad that it happened (However, as I am a lady, please picture a very quiet, ladylike mad.  Thank you.), and the anger solves nothing – still injured, things still lost. Even as I write that I hear sensible people say “Just put each item in its same place each time,” and I will once I find it.   Until then, if you need me, I’m probably looking for the keys.
• I am skittish when it comes to trusting anyone if I haven’t known you, really known you, more than 20 years. Actually, I’m going to go a bit further; it’s not just skittish. I will, in general, actively hold you at arm’s length, and if you, for any reason cause me to question you, or you scare me, I am going to push you away (Something I manage to do in a creative myriad of ways.), then swing myself up into that tower and bar the window. I also have been told that I test people, not that I do this consciously, and try, in fact not to do so.  I think I often fail at not testing.  I don’t like this about myself, but maybe it’s necessary right now.  Maybe when I don’t need it, I’ll let it go.
• I will smile and laugh, but then I analyze, and reanalyze everything said (If you are male and think this is unique to me, you are wrong. Your wife or girlfriend does this, too. You’re welcome.), and often my first reaction won’t be my last. You’d think I’d be old enough by now to simply hold my tongue until I was sure of what I wanted to say, but conversations don’t normally work like that.
• My favorite quote is from Tozer: “What I believe about God is the most important thing about me,” and I strive for my life to reflect that. Some days it does, some days – not so much.   (See second point above.)
• I have known incredible, magnificently, heartbreaking failures, some of which you know, but I trust that those will be redeemed somehow by God, turning the ashes of my life into beauty, if not for me than for someone else.
• I keep writing because it is a cry of hope into the void that somehow what I write touches someone’s life that needs it at that moment.

Here’s my bottom line: I don’t know what today will bring anymore than anyone else does. All I have to offer in this world is the light I’ve been given. That light comes from the Creator, and it is magnified by the days we live, places we’ve been, people with whom we come into contact. Not everyone we interact with is safe, and not everyone we share life with is a permanent fixture, but how we respond to what occurs between us is a choice. We can bottle our light (and ourselves) up, refuse to share, whether hurt or happiness, and the light dims, or we can offer our hearts – broken, battered, scarred – as best we can, and hope that the light still existing within us is bright enough to lead someone else safely into harbor.  Brave or not, that’s all I know to do.