I love to write. I loved it in high school and will never, ever forget my freshman writing class taught by Willa Greene. She was, and still is I'm sure, a wonderful writing teacher. I still remember the specific feedback she wrote on my papers. I wrote a paper about Johnny Bench one time and included the cliche "needless to say". When I got it back, that phrase was circled and written in red above it was "So why say it?"
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Touche'.
When I got to college, I was told by upperclassmen that, for the teacher I had, the grade I got on my first paper would be my grade for the whole semester. I wasn't worried. I had always made A's and I was sure I'd make an A in that class. So, imagine my surprise when I got my first paper back and saw a B+.
Hold up....a B+? Didn't this professor realize that I didn't make B's in English? Of course, I did make a punctuation error or two, so I cleaned that up for my next paper and confidently turned it in.
B+ again.
Now, this was getting serious it simply would not do for me. I hadn't made a single error. The professor made no comments on the paper at all and I still got a B+. Could those upperclassmen have been right? Was I stuck with a B+?? I needed to step up my game. So, I did what going to a small school gives you the liberty to do...I asked for a conference with the professor. I explained that I had always gotten A's in English, I was on an academic/athletic scholarship and needed to keep my GPA above 3.5. So, how could I improve and get that A? To be frankly honest, I don't remember a single thing Dr. Noble said in that meeting. It honestly didn't matter either. I mean, I'd written a paper with no errors at all and she had no feedback on how to make it better and I still got a B+.
But it was the last B+ I ever got in that class. Following our meeting, I got only A's from that point forward. Evidently, my writing somehow improved enough to warrant A's (this was written in my sarcasm font).
I told you all of that to tell you this: Writing is fun to me. I never realized that I had been given a wonderful gift when I was given the ability to write well. I ignorantly assumed that everyone could put accurately put their feelings into words. But, as I've discovered, that's not true at all. I appreciate this gift, but have only recently done much with it. This blogging deal is pretty cool and I've gotten some nice feedback from it. But...and here's the real focus of this particular blog...how much should I really put in writing and give the entire world access to the war inside my head?
I saw this quote about a week ago and it stopped me in my tracks. First off, I'm not saying that I write beautifully. Others have told me that I do and I appreciate it, but when I read my stuff, I mostly see the flaws. I generally don't work on a blog for days. I pretty much find something I want to write about and knock it out in one sitting. I like when something inspires me and the words just seem to pour out. There have been lots of times when I thought, "I want to blog something today" only to sit here in front of the computer with no inspiration at all. But that quote really got me...and not because of the part about writing beautifully. It's the "the inside of your mind must be a terrible place" that stuck with me.
Could that possibly be true? Does the fact that I write well signal that I have a terrible war inside my head? Does it mean that those who cannot write well don't struggle with things inside their head? Of course not. None of those things are necessarily related to the other. But, for me, I can totally relate to the inside of my mind being a terrible place.
I mean, there are days when I'm happy and then sad for no reason. I make great plans to do things: to start eating right, to get in better shape, to go to the store, to send a text to a friend who I know is struggling, and a hundred other things...only to do none of them. I think back over wins and losses, good times and bad, good decisions and bad ones, I kick myself over and over for things I've done and said, I'm full of regret and then I'm angry with everyone. Anger...yes, that's been my fuel for a long time. So, I embrace my anger, but sometimes I keep it in my head. Then I'll think about people who have hurt me and I'll get madder. But then I'll think about people I've hurt and the anger gives way to guilt...then sorrow. I kick myself over wasting my life and then I feel good about some of the people I've helped. Then I'll think about my kids and how wonderfully they've turned out. Surely I'm not that bad of a guy to have helped raise two fantastic human beings.
The war inside my head wages constantly. But, writing has been great therapy. I don't know what other people do to calm the raging tide in their minds...and other people have wars inside their minds, right? It's not just me, right? RIGHT??
But when it comes down to it, the inside of my mind IS a terrible place. As Creed sang years ago, "I've created my own prison." But we all do that, don't we? We're all full of regrets but we also keep incredibly happy moments tucked away in our minds and hearts. The question is, which side is going to win? The good stuff or the bad stuff?
"You can't change your past, but you can always change your future."
Don't let the terrible things win. Do what you have to do to get through it. Deal with it one way or another, but deal with it.
Then live.
