It’s no secret (well maybe that’s not true since I did keep it a secret for a long time) that I’m trying to write a book. For the past year I’ve been trying to regurgitate my life into some form of written story. The hard part is that it’s so fucking emotional that it takes me a long time just to get a few pages down. The entire time that I’m typing away, I’m also reliving everything as if I’m in the moment of experience.
I write something.
I feel something.
I stop.
This week has been especially hard because I’ve been writing a lot about my mother. Feeling like the words should be taking one path, I am completely thrown off track because my words decide to take a left instead of right and I find myself writing about things I was unprepared for.
My friend Jon says there are two types of writers; Microwave writers and slow cooker writers.
Microwave writers tend to sit down at their laptops or pick up a pencil and verbally vomit as much as possible in as little time as possible. Afterwards they spend the time revising, rewriting, regurgitating until something more tangible is in their hands.
Slow cooker writers like to simmer for long periods of time on what they’re trying to express. I’m a slow cooker kind of writer. Honestly I’m a slow cooker kind of person in almost anything I do. Sometimes it takes me hours just to get a few paragraphs onto a page because I have to mix the ingredients just right. A little taste here. Add a little pinch of something there. For me, writing is a process of reliving. As soon as my fingers begin typing I’m there, wherever there is at the moment.
That’s why it’s been such a process getting this shit out of me and into some chronological story for the rest of the world (or the handful of people that might actually be interested) to read. I think it might be easier if this was a book on how to lose weight or how to start running with some funny antidotes here and there for you to laugh along side with me but this book is downright emotional. It’s “easy” to talk about mental illness, addiction and morbid obesity in the safe confines of a blog. My posts are short and too the point (at least the end result is short and too the point) and while the blog itself is extremely personal I feel like the process of putting this book together is more exposure than I’m ready for.
I’m not just a slow cooker when it come to writing. I’m a slow cooker when it comes to almost everything in my life. The same analogy can be used in weight loss as well. So many people want to lose weight and lose it so fast they don’t take the time to understand that there is going to be a lot of “clean” up if you don’t take the time to simmer. I chose to simmer along the way. I chose to stay in the moments and feel the emotions that came with the weight loss. I didn’t try to get to where I wanted to be as fast as possible because I knew the path there was filled with potholes of regret, confusion and as much sadness in losing the weight as there was happiness in gaining my life.
I’ve been crying a lot this week.
I’ve not been making the best choices in food.
I’ve not been moving as much.
I’m in a simmering point in my life right now. Just letting things be right where they need to be. At times I want to claw at my face to stop from feeling and at those very same moments I want to wrap my arms tightly around myself and whisper “it’s okay Tara”. I know part of the reason for my “SMB” (social media break) is because I’m deep in my own thoughts and emotions as I continue to write enough words to hopefully show someone the possibilities of a story to be told.
I have a lot of patience for myself that I didn’t have before. I have a lot of patience in many things that I didn’t have in the past. I’m easy to let go of anger and frustrations toward people and situations because as a slow cooker I take the time to think through my emotional reaction to things. It has been a hard lesson learned that above all things, I deserve to be the most patient with myself. I’m not spending too much time thinking about how I haven’t eaten the best, or moved the most. Instead I’m focusing on how hard it is emotionally to relive the story that is my life and to trust that the New Self of Tara will know when the time is right to let go of some Old Self of Tara behaviors.
I’m taking a few extra deep breaths this week (and in the coming weeks, months) as I continue to do what I need to do. While I *want* to write this book, I also *NEED* to write this damn thing. It’s the first thing in my life that I truly felt I needed to accomplish no matter how painful it is to see through to the end. I spend a lot of time thinking how no one will understand the emotional toll I’ve gone through just to get 20,000 words down. Sometimes I wonder if other people are as emotional when they write. This week I was writing about blueberries of all things and in the middle of my favorite coffee place I burst into tears because I was there in the middle of my story once again.
(fuck even now I’m totally tearing up because just thinking about what I wrote this week)
It hurts to think about writing. It hurts to think about NOT writing. I was born to do this. I was born to be something fantastic and even though life was kind of shitty along the way I’m still fighting to be that someone fantastic. My words are like the key to my emotional freedom. Without them I think I would just stop caring about my own life, my own journey.
Writing is like food.
I love and hate it all in the same bite.
But I have to do it.
For survival.