I recently had an idea for a book - yes, another one. Mind you, at this point I have three book projects ongoing. One is written halfway through, but for some reason it is now taking a vacation from my mind, and I am not trying to force the story to come out. I am giving it space, letting it flow when it wants to flow. The second one is just an idea, which I have no idea how to make it reality. This one is definitely beyond my capabilities, and I am again not forcing it out. The third one is this new recent idea, and this will probably be the easiest one for one very simple reason: it is already written.
Over the years, I have almost always kept a blog of my feelings, and now I have a large collection of texts showcasing those feelings, from different points in time in my life. I thought it would be a good idea to compile them into an anthology, if you will. I don't have a reason for doing it, but I think it will be interesting to see how my feelings have evolved (or not) throughout the years. Revisiting these feeling has proven to be good experiment and an interesting exercise for me. I am not sure what value will have to others, the readers, but how others will feel about something is their business, not mine. I also don't intent to charge anything for it.
I have started selecting the texts and categorising them, and I have noticed something quite remarkable: how important something was for me at some point, but now, a few years later, I can't really remember many details about it. Who was I talking about? What have they done? Why did that situation make me feel like that? And maybe the most interesting one: how come something was big enough to be overflowed out of my heart into the lines of a blog, and now I cannot even remember the basic details about it? Was I overreacting back then? There's a bit to unpack here. As always, I think we should start from the beginning: why do I write? The answer to this question is complex, full of nuances, so summing it up would not do it justice. Equally, I don't want this to become a thesis about it. So I'll have to brush on the main point, getting a bit deeper where I need to.
I started to develop an interest for writing in my teenage years. I remember a lovely teacher I had, who some will say was very inappropriate, but she understood how to communicate with me on a way that would get the message across. I was probably 15, maybe 16, she was likely into her 40s. I loved studying and I was something akin to a teacher's pet, so you can imagine I was not very popular with my colleagues. I was also very mature for my age, probably because we have always been very open to discuss any topics freely. My parents' approach was to take control of the information instead of sweeping it under the rug, thus encouraging us to ask them the questions and help us find the right answers, including themes that would be considered taboo. It was not uncommon for us to discuss sex, drugs, sexuality, politics...
That teacher in question told me that a good story is like a good fuck - although I am pretty sure she did not use the word fuck. She told me you have to need a start, middle and end. She told me the climax of the story is like a good orgasm, it could be good by itself, but the stuff leading to it can make it infinitely better when it's done right. She also told me that the climax should not be the end of it, that the aftercare is also important, and should have the same amount of care and attention to everything else. And I never forgot about this metaphor.
Some might find scandalous that a woman almost three times my age would tell me that, as a teenager, but it did not damage me. It did not make me a worse person. She knew that, she knew how to deliver the message in a way I would understand and keep. Like any effective storyteller, she imparted that knowledge to me effectively. Because I like to believe I am a good storyteller, even though I am not a bestselling author. Yet.
The first time I read a Poirot novel, I was in awe. I cannot remember which one was it, probably one of the early ones: Roger Ackroyd, Lord Edgeware, maybe Death in the Clouds... I do remember coming across the ABC Murders, my favourite of them all, when I was already a big fan of the series and the character. Many things about Poirot fascinated me, but mostly, it was the order and method. The way he had to organise everything to make sense of it. I realised very early that whilst it was a plot device intended to add a quirky side to the character, it resonated with me. It made perfect sense. Of course, he takes it to a whole new level, and that's where we differ: I am not organised with physical things. My room is usually a mess. But my ideas, my finances, my documents, all that is very well structured and organised.
Over the years I noticed that I had an ability that others didn't: I could visualise any text as a jigsaw puzzle. I could read through it and understand whether its pieces were in the right or the wrong place. I could anticipate what the final picture would be, and where would every sentence need to go to complete that picture. I was never able to explain why or how I can do it, but it just makes sense to me. Funnily enough, I am a disaster with numbers.
This "talent" came in handy whilst writing job applications, either for me or those around me who needed help. I could get a text and fix it just by staring at it for a while. I could reorganise sentences to change the meaning of what was being said, which message was supposed to be put across. I could play with words like an architect, with no formal training. It turns out, this translated very well into English, a language which I started to learn as a kid, but it is by no means my native one. Needless to say, I was extremely proud to have been able to write two different books, and now to be planning three more.
I don't know when I realised that writing about my feelings made me feel better. I believe that, for many years, I did it instinctively, as a place to allocate those things I couldn't say to my friends and family, without connecting the dots that this was the thing driving my mental health improvement. Writing is my therapy, I can see that now. And I have made use of that tool many times, which is probably one of the reasons I still function as a human being as of today.
The first blog I can remember was written under a pseudonym, at the time I was still not out of the closet. Most of my friends at the time weren't, and equally, most of them wrote under a fake name. I haven't found these texts, but I haven't looked for them properly yet. I have a feeling they were lost in one of my data loss events throughout the years, but I can't be sure of it yet. I did find the last post of the blog, shown in a cached page on an internet archive somewhere. It's a post where I say goodbye. Where I say that I am deleting everything else, but the readers needed not to worry, as I had all the entries saved. Interestingly, I teased a new blog to come. A blog where I would use my real name, as I didn't have anything to hide anymore. A blog where I could be me. That tendency became reality and it is still reality to this day.
Writing also comes in phases, both stories and about my feelings. Regarding the latter, it is clear to me that I tend to write more often in periods where things are not going well. These are the times where I need to stop, listen to my heart, let it bleed its feelings out in the form of words. Seeing these feelings written down helps me look at them, understand them, organise them and decide how to tackle them. Writing alone already makes me feel better, but once they are facing me back, I know how to deal with them. They make sense to me. I can find where it began, how it evolved into a climax and what kind of cuddle I need to give for it to end well. I can tell the story of what I feel.
Whenever someone feels upset about something, there is always the one person who will try to lighten up the mood by saying something like 'don't take it too seriously, in a hundred years none of this will mean anything!'. I always liked this way of thinking - it's comforting in a morbid kind of way. Here we are suffering, wondering what is the right way, wondering if we will ever be able to get out of this, but we are all going to die someday, and none of this will matter. Our friends will also die. Everything and everyone around us will change, and they will have their own issues and worries to care about.
Reading my old blog posts made me think about this even more. I found texts that show profound emotions, so much so that I can remember the feeling I had whilst writing them... But I cannot remember what I was writing about. Who was the person I was thinking about when I wrote it. What was the situation that led me to write it. I remember how I felt, but I don't remember why. Isn't there a phrase from Maya Angelou that goes something like "people will forget what you did, but not how you made them feel"?
The fact that I can remember feeling the way I did shows me that it did matter. There and then, it mattered. Even if, a few years later, I can't remember why. The feeling was real, so much so that it created this scar in my soul. It doesn't feel like anything anymore, but I can still look at it, see the mark it left on me.
A few times in my life, when I was feeling at my worst, I told myself that, like all those times before, this would also pass. I just had to sit through the storm, survive the night until the sun rises again. And even though I don't like having felt that way one day, I don't wish I never felt it. I don't wish it never happened. Because this is what made me the person I am today. I wouldn't be here without these scars.
I will die one day, and with me, all my ideas, feelings, worries and every piece of emotion that makes me the person I am will be gone. But whilst I still live, my feelings matter. If not to anyone else, they matter to me.
Somewhere only we know - Lily Allen (much better than the Keane version)
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