Hidden in plain sight

Why write? Why dredge up private stories and feelings from decades past and tie them down in words? Why catalog wistful desires and dreams and risk hurting those most dear?  Why bother crystallizing endorphin rushes into coherent thought?

When a love from of the dim and distant past seeps into nooks of the present, it makes for an uneasy yet irresistible fit. It’s sort of like discovering a bikini from your svelte college days and trying it on knowing fully well that you should leave well enough alone since you can’t unsee this vision! There is an intense, perverse, addictive enjoyment with hearty slice of fantasy and you drift down paths untaken.

Of late, wishful thinking has increasingly occupied my mind. I felt I was going to burst if I did not give voice to it. But how? I could barely admit to myself I was entertaining these infidel desires let alone come clean about them. Worse, my imagined scenarios of bliss and re-written history started to make me dissatisfied with my reality which was far from unpleasant.

It was as though the thoughts spinning in my head were running out of room and were trying to burst out into my real life. Does that make sense? I have the most intense need to air them out and allow sunlight to do its thing.

By releasing them to everyone and no one, my thoughts and stories seem to have become somehow tethered. Unhooked to any actual detail about me, they float alone and occasionally, strike a resonant chord in a perfect stranger – you.  Telling you has helped me because you listen.

I write primarily for my own catharsis.  But I have grown to like the twang of your empathy and validation. I know it’s freely given and unencumbered.

Secretly, I fantasize that the objects of my fancies will stumble upon this blog and recognize themselves. Equally, I’m terrified of being recognized. The consequences to confession may be steep and irrevocable.  I do not allow myself to prick the balloon by considering “Then, what?”

Writing to transform rushes of yearning and pangs of regret into consumable capsules has gone a long way in allowing me to accept and acknowledge my own reactions without self-recrimination. It is harder than I thought it would be and infinitely more rewarding than I expected.