While Hazel sleeps, I’m opening this door just a little more for the words to sidle in like an abashed child. They’re all there, you know— while I wash the dishes, entire worlds being built, conversations I’ll never have on the tip of my tongue, word for word— it’s all there spinning away like goldfish in a bowl.
Sometimes I look at past selves and wonder where the words came from. A lot of it was the need to make sense of things. To put it down in a way that mattered, the way that it mattered inside my own chest. It was heavy and felt essential to get out. But now, the words pound with my pulse, every day, like breathing, like something you don’t ever think about until it becomes difficult.
It’s asking them into the light that I’m struggling with, these days.
What’s tricky is that there isn’t one specific time in my life I can point to where the silence descended from. But I think as you become an adult, we begin to see more than we did— how people view us, what people think, how our words could impact them, maybe already have. And the weight of that responsibility is crushing. At least, it was for me.
How can I write about something I’m still learning? Still growing in? How can I write about being a wife when I’ve only been one for 5 years? What about being a mother when I only have one child earthside, one heaven-flown? My experiences feels paper-thin, my hands empty and tucked sheepishly into pockets.
I’m realizing that I fear people are looking for easy judgements in my writing. Something pointing them towards where I’ve landed or who I am, or what my life looks like in the day to day. And where would I even begin to accurately capture every moment? I can’t, neither can you. Social media, writing, is a window, at best. A glimpse into moments of learning, failing, choosing joy. But the whole picture? Life is full of ebbs and flows, convictions and realizations. Momentary catastrophes followed by unreasonable goodness. It’s overthinking to a whole new extreme, because how do you capture that? I don’t think we were meant to.
But these pockets of grace, these things we can’t shake off…
With all that being said, I’m slowly finding my way back into this space. Longing to find a place where my words can land again. I’m making an agreement with myself to write about the things that feel important to me, the things I can’t stop thinking about, pointing to. Even if I’m afraid of getting it wrong. It’s all still there, even if these thoughts won’t be the same things that were on my heart five years ago, or even five minutes ago (here too, I have to remind myself that this is the truth of the moment).
And here’s the thing: if you were struggling with writing and told me that you felt like there was this massive responsibility to get it all right, that people were peering in from every angle, life experience, hurt, and story, and it all felt like too much to address, too many things to take into account, I’d tell you to stop writing for all of them.
Start writing for one.
Write for the one person who does need to hear your words. For the one who will leave encouraged, challenged, having a greater sense of appreciation for beauty, or community, or home life, or whatever it may be. And the best part? You can’t plan it. You can’t mine the world for the one heart who will need your words or plan how they will receive them. Your words aren’t for everyone, and that’s okay. All you can do is your part and show up, then open your palms and let the words fall where they will.
I keep coming back to this, something I’ve been circling around for years since the words started hiding in plain sight.
I think it’s time to be brave, again.