I often wonder why I write–whether it is out of necessity or convenience. If it is the former, then I would be left with no choice but to write as if my life were dependent upon it. The latter implies that I may one day abandon the practice altogether when it no longer suits me. This thought, however distressing, is evidenced by the considerable gaps I take between writing anything of substance. When I am not in the mood to write, I experience a guilt that is not unlike the parent who knows they have forsaken their child. I am fearful that if I do not capture my thoughts and examine their intricacies, varying shades and tonalities, they will become lost: eroded gradually, then all at once. This neurosis leads me to write even when it is undesirable, because I feel deeply that I must remember myself exactly as I am. As I was.
There lies respite not always in my mind, but in my ability to create something more certain than its fluctuations. I will eventually become someone entirely new, unrecognizable to my younger self. She, who knows more about herself now than she ever will, must be preserved. She must be shielded from the well-meaning but inaccurate recollections, the obscurations of memory and time. Even the subjectivity and unreliability in my current accounts are as close to the truth as I can possibly arrive. Beyond them, I will change my mind once again, and any attempts to convey the past will be more suggestive of who I have become than who I was.
Ultimately, I write to both discover and create myself. I write to experience the brief, euphoric bliss that comes from expressing myself exactly as I intend. And it sometimes feels like a feat quite impossible. Still, I search the dark corners of my mind, as a stubborn voyager, determined to present evidence of everything I have never written. And I get very frustrated. And I let it go. I let it all go.