Lately, a few unanswered questions have been rolling around in my head, flaring whenever I sit down to write. They’re as persistent and loud as my children banging on my locked bathroom door, and their redundant, mental interrogations are almost enough to make me wave the white flag of surrender.
“What is the point of writing?” they demand. “Why are you wasting your time?”
It’s taken me a while, but I think I finally have the answer.
This afternoon, I sat outside Target, seething and trying to wait out Grayson’s raging fit over absolutely nothing. I pretended not to notice everyone’s curious stares and attempted to appear like a kind, patient mother, all the while wrestling with my not-so-kind and not-so-patient thoughts. I couldn’t go into the store or get him to the car, so I just sat on the wall outside of Target and tried to befriend my anger and embarrassment.
Upon further reflection, I realize how many “outsides” I’ve frequented over the course of Grayson’s short lifetime—the outsides of churches, schools, restaurants, grocery stores, always at the ends of football fields, perpetually closest to the exit doors at basketball games. I’ve not made friends with other parents or adults because I know I’d never be able to sustain conversations. I don’t talk on the phone unless Grayson is in bed, and I try to go to the fewest places possible when he’s in tow.
I do not say this to complain or out of self-pity; rather, these reflections have helped me answer my petulant questions.
I write because, for the first time in literally ten years, I can connect with the “outside world.” I feel normal—human—like it’s possible to travel beyond the confines of our home. Writing makes it possible to share protracted ideas with other adults and to read their written responses. I write because, like a woman emerging from Plato’s allegorical cave from darkness into light, my thick tongue finds it easier to write than to speak. I write because it is something that I can genuinely, albeit meagerly, offer back to the world. I write to leave a paper trail so that if anything ever happens to me, my children will understand my thoughts and my heart. Lastly, I write for myself. When I write, time stops, and my world grows small. It’s like reconnecting with a long-lost friend—one I’d forgotten how much I love.
So, to anyone who has taken the time to read words and especially to comment, thank you. Thank you for helping me not feel so isolated. Thank you for allowing me the gift of your thoughts and responses. You will never know how much it all means.
With gratitude…
