I’m not that kind of writer

So often I feel like I have nothing to say.  That’s not the kind of writer I am.  I have no political agenda, no deep philosophy that will help mold or change the world.  I have NOTHING to say.  I have thoughts, I have moments where I wish that was me.  That I had more passion, more desire to make a difference, to leave an imprint on the world, so that when the end comes I don’t just cease to exist.  But I’m not that kind of writer.  I write fiction, I write fantasy.  I write to escape.

I create worlds into which I can dive, into which I can safely escape and hide from the world I live in.  To hide from the homeless that infest my life.  The homeless, the druggies, the ones with hands reaching out and glazed eyes that I have learned to look away from because they are everywhere and I just can’t care anymore.  The world I live in where my neighbors scream with hate at each other and there’s nothing I can do but try to hide from the memories it stirs up of a traumatic childhood and the reminder that I am helpless to escape this life. 

I write to escape.  I always have.  To escape the childhood that was a prison of my mother’s making, where I was forced to believe and act according to her will, where I learned to read her every mood to determine how I should behave.  Where her moods, good or bad, dictated everything, all my happiness, all my fears, hinged on her moods.  To escape the marriage where I wasn’t enough, where I COULDN’T have ever been enough because I was a scared and bruised child and had no idea who I was or who I was supposed to be.

I write to escape the mental illness passed down to me from my mother, from her mother.  From the deep, deep black of my depressions, or the raging highs of mania and worse, so much worse the abject fear of anxiety that tries to strangle me and take away all of my control.

I write to escape.  It saw me through those prisons, through the worst six years of my life.  I think I would have died without that escape, without that way to free myself from all I was so afraid of, from how hard it was to be in a place where there was no control, where my mental illness was winning every single day and where I have never been more alone without any support coming from home because they were struggling so hard as well.  If I hadn’t written fiction, fantasy, I don’t think I could have made it through.  I don’t think I would still be alive.

If I didn’t write fantasy, if I didn’t write this “nothing” I wouldn’t be here.  I’m just not that kind of writer.

I will never be a great poet, I will never change the world with my words.  That’s not the kind of writer I am.  I’m the kind that you snuggle up with on a rainy day when you just want to escape.  That’s the kind of writer I am.

Sometimes I’m ok with that.  Sometimes…most of the time I feel like I should be more.  That I’m less because I don’t have some agenda.  That I don’t spout out all the time about making the world a better place.  I spend time with young artists, young people so passionate about life, talking about the raging of their emotions and ‘feeling’ and wanting to ‘connect’ and share and change the world and make a difference.  Wanting to reshape things how they should be.  They write spoken word pieces about racism, and class-ism and social injustice and I envy them their ability to have that energy, that passion.  I envy them WANTING to make a difference when all I want is quiet and looking at them raging against the world makes me tired.  I look at them and wonder how they can have that much energy.  I wonder when life will kick it out of them too.  I wonder if I ever had that kind of zeal, if I ever dreamed of making a difference or if I’ve always been content to escape into my fantasies and be NOTHING.

I’d like to say something inspiring, something that would heal the world and help people to have faith in the face of life, life that is SO exhausting.  To tell people they can achieve anything they want.  I’d love to give hope and meaning.  But I’m not that kind of writer.

I don’t have anything to say.  I’m too broken for that.  I’m too damaged I think.  I might have before.  I just don’t have it now.

I’m not that kind of writer.