Writing…

…is therapeutic. It relieves me of frustrations because you learn to verbalize the frustration. Writing is cathartic and gives me release in a world where I would otherwise watch every word I utter. I began to write fairly late in life, when I realized that I had much to say and no way to make myself heard. One fine day in October, seven years ago, I discovered that there was indeed a way of making myself heard. That is when I began to write. What began as an intimate diary open only to invited readers has today assumed a life of it’s own; an identity that is slowly becoming distinct from my personal one.

Writing helps me think clearly. Writing makes me a better person.Writing gives me something to do with all the million thoughts that swim around in my head trying to tumble out in the form of words. Sometimes, I succeed in building a coherent stream of thought. At other times, these words remains log-jammed in my head, much like vehicles in a traffic jam trying to get ahead of one another and remaining all stuck in one place.On such days, I wish I could spew out random words just to rid my brain of all the unwanted and pointless thoughts that crowd out precious thinking space in my brain. Sometimes, I just let it be and end up sleeping over it, only to wake up with a head full of random dreams that I can make no sense of.

This reminds me of the free writing exercise we used to do in English class in college. Mrs. Jasper used to ask us to write whatever came to our mind, unmindful of grammar and syntax, spelling and coherence for a certain duration. Sometimes, this was as short as a minute and sometimes as long as ten. This exercise unfailingly lightened the burden on my mind. Every single time. I still do it on a sheet of paper when my mind is full of things. On that note, this also reminds me that I have stopped writing. I don’t know why or in what circumstances I actually stopped putting my words to paper (or screen), but I do know that it is roughly around this time that I actually started changing as a person; and not necessarily for the better.

A good friend, over a casual chat over 2 years ago pointed out: “Amrutha, your mind is so full of things. Just give it some rest, will you?” I shrugged off his comment and didn’t give much thought to it then. Now, I wonder if he was right. I wonder if I should just give my mind some rest and take it easy. And I also wonder if beginning to write again will help me accomplish that. I do not know. I can only hope to find out one day!