Life

I've figured it out, why I write.

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I haven't been writing in the days since my dad died. Or in the days, weeks, before that even, because he was sick and I couldn't pull myself from knowing it would be quick. I had emotion weighing down each moment, and had those things, life-or-death kinds of things, to tend to. You know?

I spent a lot of time with my parents and sister; time helping, time loving. And I was okay putting my writing aside for a while. This blog took on a sort of lesser quality. From what I thought was my standard, anyway. And my fiction was tucked away, saved, ready for later. Whenever.

But then my everyday real-and-in-person life flagged, too.

I started suspecting the cause was more than losing my father. Because hard as that has been, and continues to be, would it overlap into everything else, the minutiae of daily life as a wife, mother, homemaker? Force my patience and determination to wear, not just thin but through? I've been apathetic. I've been moody. Horrible.

I told my husband something is wrong. That everything--people, my responsibilities, all of it--overwhelms me.

Then last night I had one of those half-lucid brainstorms. The first scene of A Gradual Goodbye, the novel I'm rewriting, floated around in my dreams, delivering me back to the story. The creative coals kindled.

When I woke this morning I headed straight for the computer. Pulled the book up. Worked for a couple hours, felt it for the first time in a long while. Inner peace. And it clicked. The piece I hadn't been able to fit, let alone identify, slid right in its place. I don't know why I didn't realize it before.

It's the writing. Such a defining outlet for me. That creativity, huge. It balances my world, and my mental health.

It makes me happy. That's why I write.