I have loved telling stories since I was a kid. I used to love to write short stories and even had a book I was noodling with in my early teens. I remember my Aunt Maggie used to ask if I had 'that good book I was writing' with me when I'd visit Grandma. There's also one particularly disturbing story I wrote in 4th grade as my parents were going through their divorce called "The Girl is Missing" or something like that and let's just say it didn't end well for the girl. If a faceless dead girl in the weeds strewn in marker of a 9 year old doesn't scream "maybe she's not handling the divorce so well", I don't know what does!
In high school, I moved on to song writing/poetry. I'll come across those every now and then when I vow to clean out my closet. Most times I shake my head and say "obviously, I was listening to The Cure a lot." Some are embarrassing and I think of throwing them out but I never do because I don't want to dishonor what I was feeling at that time. It's a look back on who I was at that point in time from 14-17. A time so different from who I am now in so many ways but still grounded in some of the same darker emotions.
I sometimes wonder why I stopped writing poetry. I guess longing for love and having that outlet when you're hoping for someone to not relegate you to the friend zone will bring that out in you. But when I met the Mr at 17, my poetry stopped. I don't know if I thought I didn't need it anymore or I didn't need to write but I do miss it. I feel like I wouldn't know how to write a meaningful poem right now if I tried. I think as an adult if you're focusing on writing something meaningful, you just end up psyching yourself out whereas when you were a kid and going through all of the emotions, hormones and everything seemed like life and death, it flows much easier. It's hard to get pumped up over writing about what to cook for dinner, telework and working out. It feels kind of like a little death of yourself when that well runs dry.
Did you write stories, songs or poetry in school? Do you still?
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I've never been a creative person either in writing or in crafting. Give me a research paper and I can write the heck out of it, but stories/songs/ poems were always out of my range.
ReplyDeleteI wrote songs as a kid and especially when I was in a rock band in high school. Usual theme was being lovesick basically so yeah, once we met and got married the well ran dry. A good thing, but not if I was trying to make a living off that. I believe that is why it is so hard to sustain being a hit songwriter for very long. You either have to write all the best ones before you make it big and have enough to keep you going a long time or you have to find turmoil in your life to have new material to write about.
ReplyDeleteMy best friend in high school and I used to write "soap operas" about the boys we had crushes on. Long drawn out things that we'd be so excited to read. We'd pass them in the halls and the labels were "eyes" for her and "ears" for me. So stupid. ROFL I used to do a lot of writing when I was younger, but not anymore. Back then it felt good to see it in writing and make sense of things. I don't feel that way as much as an adult and I don't enjoy writing the way I used to. Maybe it's the lack of time, or maybe I'm just better at verbalizing and processing it that way. I don't really know. I do know I've gotten rid of old journals and things like that, and random slips of paper that I've been going through in the perpetual decluttering. I guess that goes along with the three bags of pictures I just threw out of old memories that did not bring any joy at all. Pitched them and felt good taking those out to the curb this weekend.
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