Finding Meaning

I recently came across a quote that said something to the effect of - if you don’t have to write, don’t. It makes sense. There are people who have to write and there are people who could live perfectly happy lives not writing. And why muddle the world of writing with mediocre writing or writing that lacks passion? For the past couple of years, I feel like I’ve been straddling this line. Lately I’ve felt more of an obligation to write than the need. 

But I have to clarify what I mean - I think the need for me to do personal writing is dwindling. I hate to say my life is no longer interesting, but I guess that’s how I would put it. Unlike my time in Wrangell or Tanzania or Bhutan, I’m not in a constant mode of discovery; I’m not constantly inserting myself into new and strange situations. While I still live in the one of the most beautiful places on earth and revel in its beauty, my life within it has become routine. That’s not to say it’s not a good life, because it is. I’m very lucky to have the life I do. But is it worthy of prose? 

I do still find myself in certain situations and composing lines of writing in my head, like when I started dance again this semester and found that not only were my fellow classmates less than half my age, but I was older than the teacher. I was officially the old maid of the class, that weird older person who doesn't seem to belong. I was that person. And while I would’ve loved to have scribbled a few lines down at the time, I didn't feel compelled to rush to my laptop after class. Instead, I stopped at Fred Meyer (the grocery store) on my way home and once I got home, likely just gabbed Scott’s ear off about being the old person in class. It would’ve likely been around 9:30 pm — far too late for my brain to be in writing mode. 

And I had been at work until 7 pm before dance class. That’s the other thing — beside my life becoming quite routine, I write for my job. It’s not always the type of writing I would ideally like to be doing (sometimes it is), but I give it all I’ve got in terms of brain power. It exhausts me. As a reporter, my writing is always based on interviews and documents and research, and so I think that’s the type of writing I now prefer. Things that simply come from my mind — is that even important? 

I struggle with this. 

I don’t want to just write for writing’s sake. I still aspire to write my mother’s story or my family’s story. I haven’t lost that. So it’s not like I’ve abandoned writing. I don’t think I could ever do that. 

You know, maybe it’s not that interesting things stopped happening, it’s that I stopped seeing them as interesting. Poets have this amazing way of turning the ordinary into the extraordinary, finding meaning in the mundane. I think I used to do that better.