Staying Awake.

After these last few posts I was drawn here again to say something, even though I don't know the real worth of these words.

At the beginning of the month I said I wasn't going to acknowledge the absence I took from this blog and from writing in general. That was probably a mistake, because I've known all along that one of the hazards of taking on this writing-everyday-endeavor was that it would force me to acknowledge what exactly had changed since before April 1.

This is on my mind because, before this month, I wasn't just absent from writing or keeping a personal blog (keyword: personal, for my benefit, and completely selfish), I was also absent from my life. In the time between consistent stretches of my regular writing, aka BEDAugust and BEDAPRIL, I disappeared because I needed to ignore what my life and what I had become.

But now, at the close of this month and at the end of the semester, I am faced with the knowledge that 7 months of my life actually occurred. They are in the past now. And I don't have any record of them except for painful memories. I don't even have many photographic records, i.e. pictures taken with friends for no other reason than to record memories for ourselves and no one else. And I don't even have private writings of my thoughts from that time. All I have are a few (fleeting and empty) images and snapshots of myself during that time, none of which I remember. Because I was living between blackouts*.

I can't say that I'm a different person now. Remember when I said I could only handle filling up this blog  with knick-knacks of my life? Well, I'm still unsure about whether or not this is the proper way for me to record life and myself. But the truth is I can't live my life with just knick-knacks and I can't become a writer by only writing about knick-knacks. The reality is that half a year went by and I didn't notice. I have to live with the knowledge that I can slip back into that state of ignorant-living-sleep very easily. And it's no one's business except my own**.


This month was a really difficult task for me, to return to daily writing. There's been a lot of talk about the worth of BEDA recently. I think in my case, it's a little different. I needed to realize that I was actually living a life and I suppose now I can see that, almost directly as a result of forcing myself to start writing again.

At one point in the month, I said the worth of these words was that they were words, not that they were mine. I think that's wrong. I have to acknowledge the fact that there is value in the bits of myself I put into these words. They are my thoughts made tangible. My thoughts. My life. And that gives them meaning that is a lot scarier than just ignoring my authorial power as the writer.


*Literally. In my very first post from this month I discussed the process of healing beginning with acknowledgement. I was flippant about it. I still am. I'm not a particularly optimistic person. But it's important to note that I can put a name on the issues. It's not just important to acknowledge problems, it's important to call them by their proper names and confess to them fully. I'm not sure how long it will take me to learn to cope with these issues, but it's much easier for me to admit to them.

**Interesting to see how ambiguous I was at the beginning of the month, vague references to "issues" that I wouldn't talk about. Now, a month later here I am really analyzing the worth in awareness and sharing and acknowledging. This is an important process for me. I'm still trying to decide if it's worth keeping public or not. I don't want to hide from who I am but I don't want to feel as though I am being judged unfairly (because of course these short blog posts can't represent a fully complex version of who I am as a person).