Coming Back

Okay. So. I'm a writer. That's who I am. But lately I feel like I'm lacking. My writing isn't good enough anymore. A piece of me is missing.

I took a long hiatus from writing. My boyfriend dumped me, I had Mono, and my cat died. To say I was depressed was an understatement. I was almost about to start self-harming. But I sought help. I talked to a teacher, who talked to my mom. My mom called the doctor before she talked to me in the car after school. It was hard to write while I was so down on myself. I couldn't find the drive to get out of bed some days, let alone sit down and write about someone else's life that was sure to be shitty with my mindset.

That was over a year ago. I've gotten better. A lot better. Emotionally, I mean.

I've tried writing since then. Some days I just needed to write. It was my escape. Halfway through a paragraph I was usually stumped. I had lost most of my ambition during that time. I'm slowly getting it back.

Part of the reason I'm so reluctant to write is because I've discovered a new passion in life. An escape from thought. Beauty. By that I mean that I do nails, put on makeup, and do hair. Most of these things require a release of thought while still holding that self-expression that I've always craved from life. I can play with colors and designs and create wearable art. I watch girls like Cora, Lucy, and Caitlin who have shown me that what I once thought as a cry for attention was art. I thank them so much for that. They have given me a new form of courage and a new way to express myself.

There's still something missing from that art, though. A thought. While all art has meaning, there are some who don't carry with them thought. Writing carries thought.

Writing has always been a major part of my life. I've had a diary since I was five, and although I didn't jot down my thoughts on a regular basis, it was an outlet for me to express myself and better understand my feelings toward people and the world around me. I've always loved telling stories and creating people with lives in my mind, and finding these beautiful writing communities that share this form of art, self-expression, and thought has been a magical and life changing experience that I will never forget.

I want so badly to rejoin this community. The problem being that most of my friends have since left and moved on with their lives. At times I consider doing the same, but I can't. I can't abandon this thought that the world of beauty neglects.

I'd like to quickly point out that thought and intelligence is two very different things. The men and women in beauty are very smart, as they ought to be when dealing with the hazardous materials that they do. But there is really no thought to their world. It is full of images with no words. Colors so vibrant and techniques so precise. It can be compared to the ways of the writers. Our characters are lively and our phrases have to be just so to express what we mean.

The writing community has been a home to me for years. I spent all of middle school here and half of my freshmen year of high school. I'll be a junior in the fall, and while I plan to go to college to study cosmetology, I am a writer and plan on coming that well after I'm settled with a family. But as I've said before, all my friends are gone. There's really no one left in this community I feel like I can turn to for advice and friendship. My friend, Leif, who was once a poet is the closest thing I have to a writing friend with his knowledge of grammar and analysis of characters from the countless magnas he's read. But he's not a writer, and doesn't fully understand the torture that comes with it or how when I say a sentence isn't right that I don't always mean grammatically.

My writing is sending me into another fit of depression whenever I try to convey my thoughts onto paper or type them up on my shitty, hand-me-down laptop. Should I give up? Turn in my pen and paper for a world of thoughtless beauty? I still find so much pleasure from writing that I can't quit. Not yet. Practice makes perfect, and perhaps I am just out of practice.

I need advice from someone that I yet not know. I need someone to help me find the balance between beauty and writing.