When You’re Not Okay, You Can Still Write.
Sometimes, it’s the best thing for you.

I’m going to be honest with you here. Yesterday was the first day in a long time that I have actively wished that I had some way to put myself out of pain. I wanted with a raw and desperate edge the hydrocodone or benzos I used to take in years past back when I suffered from such horrible depression and anxiety that I’d gobble up my back and psychiatric meds, self-medicating just so I didn’t have to be in my head for a couple of hours.
But I didn’t.
And when I woke up feeling the same way again this morning at 4 a.m., I didn’t then, either.
I cried for hours yesterday. I cried for so long and so hard that my eyes are swollen and achy. I’m crying right now as I write this, because all of my insides feel like they’ve been ripped out of my body and I am so heartsick. I cried for so long that I vomited because I had so many toxins inside me. Because I was gagging on the phlegm.
Then I got up this morning and I wrote.
I’m not telling you any of this because I want you to feel sorry for me. Nor am I telling you any of this because I want you to pat me on the back. I don’t want your pity, and I don’t want your kudos. What I want is for you to know that you can do it, too.
There have been so many days like this in my life, and I know you’ve had them, too. I see you. I feel your pain, and I’m right there with you. We can do this. It‘s not possible every day to get up and write…and that’s okay, too. But the important thing is that every day, the page is there for us. The page is there for us when nothing and no one else is. The page is there when things are going great, and when things are going really, desperately wrong. The page is always there, and the great equanimity of it is that it’s just as rewarding either way.
The page gives back what you put into it. The more difficult it is for you when you do show up, the more you’ll get back by having done so.
Writers write. It’s that simple. I’m not necessarily glad I’m here, but I am here, and I have a voice that no one can take away from me — and so do you. Your voice is one of a kind, and the world needs you to use it. We need to hear what you have to say. You were sent here to make a contribution, and you’re the only one who can contribute your own particular, singular piece of the global conversation.
So please, come, write.
Maybe we can all write our way out of whatever’s ailing us…together.
Then we won’t be alone anymore, either.
