Jigsaw

Once upon a time I thought of writing as the overflow of ideas and emotion, the pressure-release valve that brings relief and keeps my feet planted firmly on the ground. Now I feel as though I've waited too long, intimidated by my own words or, rather, by my inability to capture an essence or a simple wisp of feeling that I no longer know how or what to say.

Unused as I am to this feeling of trepidation, I'm hesitant to post anything at all. In the past I've accepted words for what they are - a swirling, insubstantial, beautiful mask for what lies beneath - but I'm forced to reject that now, wanting as I do for words to mean something, to say something true, that I can't simply use them as a game or a ploy but want them - need them! - to reflect what I mean as if that would somehow prove myself. Somehow make myself real.

In the end, we're only as real as the impact we've made, whether in the minds of others or some arguably more tanglible creation. It's not that I fear mortality; I fear never having been. I fear that everything I've never said will vanish like unseen smoke and I with it, unrealized.