Lost and Found; or, Writing as a Part of Self-Care

Word on the street is: people are writing…for fun.

I’ve always considered my writing to be some kind of web of passion project meets storytelling addiction meets must-needs-be-creating-something-at-all-times. Writing has never felt like a hobby or past time activity, but more of a compulsive and constant need to express myself creatively. I love to sketch, solve puzzles, read books, create pixel art, complete diamond paintings, play and learn new instruments; all of these are fun activities to me. Hobbies are just that: activities you do for the fun of them; but, writing has never been fun for me.

This doesn’t mean that I see it as work or a chore and, while it can very much feel like those things from time to time, I’ve always seen writing (and, more specifically, storytelling) as a matter of self-care. Writing is my chance to simultaneously relax and challenge myself, to bare my soul and simultaneously hide among my scenes and characters. Storytelling, for me, is a matter of coping with life and its hardships and failures. I was always that child found staring off into space, singing to herself or the moon, or mumbling incoherently to myself while I collected rocks or picked up garbage in the neighborhood. I am painfully aware of how weird I was/am and this has always been a part of me like a package deal; you get the person the storyteller.

A perfect example of this happened during a ladies’ weekend trip to Chicago I took with a very good friend of mine. We were sitting in the restaurant at the top of the hotel we were staying in and having brunch and the beginnings of bottomless mimosas when out of nowhere, mid-sentence, my vision drifted off to the bar and I zoned out completely for a good 45 seconds. My friend, confused at my behavior, waited for me to “come back” patiently; when I finally did, I presented a feature length art film about food and romance, full of drama, cinematography, shot and scene stylings, even soundtrack bits. Floored, she was baffled that I was able to pull a full screenplay out of nowhere in 45 seconds; but the mood had struck and I was forced to jot everything I could remember into my Notes app before it drifted back to the nether and was lost to me forever.

This part is kind of important; since I spent years with writer’s block, I have only recently gotten in the habit of writing my ideas down (thanks to the same friend above). It’s also why I interchange storytelling and writing, because while storytelling has always been the coping skill, writing is the recently developed/rediscovered outlet. As I’ve mentioned multiple times in this blog before, running D&D games was a major method of release for at least a decade while the writing part of my brain was broken.

Writing is also self-care for me because I don’t ‘dream’ in the way I think most people do. When I sleep, I see nothing– just blackness. If I experience ‘dreams’, it is usually during the part of the morning after my first alarm but before the snooze goes off, when I’m just dozing. These dreams, which are very rare and far between, are lucid and vivid…and I rarely remember what they are about unless they are particularly odd or terrifying for some reason. They are consistently nightmares and particularly unsettling ones at that. Because of this, storytelling is my only consistent way of dealing with subconscious loose thoughts, ideas, and sensory inputs from throughout the day. I need it to cope, to diffuse the energy and tension in my mind and transfer it elsewhere.

I’ll admit; I envy people who can “have fun writing” and crank out 25,000 words in three days during the first week of NaNoWriMo. I don’t know if I will ever write that quickly or efficiently. Maybe when my kids are older, grown and have moved out, I may find the peace and time and practice it takes to be that kind of writer. For now, I don’t mind using my writing to sift through the unspoken, confusing feelings; the sights and sounds of a new place; the hostilities that build over listening or reading the news anymore…

Is writing a safe space for you to practice self-care? Is writing something you use as a release? Do you write specifically for purpose, like work or as a tool of your trade? Leave a comment and let me know. As always, thank you for visiting.

–V. Raylean