I should have been writing. Instead I turned to my tv. I should have been writing. Writing is one of the only ways to initiate the process of converting the past into the tomorrow, the abstract to the tangible, the concept to the conceived. And the process of writing itself is unique, when you pause unsure, when a word you rarely says easily manifests itself, when coherence emerges where chaos had loomed. I should have been writing.

But writing requires feeling. And feeling requires strength, energy, and courage. Feeling requires remembering. Unless of course, through some learned or innate trait, you can know a feeling when it arises and from where it arose. But for me, I can only recognize a feeling once the moment has passed. Because in the moment, I was busy evaluating, detecting, scoping it out, reading people. Feeling in the moment is not a survival mechanism. If you are in danger, you cannot feel fear, you cannot respond to sadness when facing the threat. Feeling in the moment cannot prepare you for what comes next. The moment requires action, not large, advertised action, but calculated actions. If I do this…then this will occur. If I do this…the other will retreat, attack, feel confused.

But later, when the danger level has been lowered, when threat has been averted. I can say to myself, that REALLY FUCKING HURT. I can parse out the course of events and identify where the threat emerged, who ordered the threat and who executed the threat. Humans have the ability to orchestrate all three, unconsciously.

So feeling then comes from memory, and why would I want to relive a threat. So I turned on the tv.

But writing makes you stare down the threat and your own fear. It asks of you to give meaning to it all. Writing wants it to make sense. One thought – on period. Two connected thoughts, with a comma. Writing will not allow simply the swirl of emotions to embrace you. Writing asks for it to be examined. And in this way, writing does not allow you to remain in the memory. It forces it all to come to light, be be orderly, so that it cannot come back to swallow you up. The chaos cannot return to confound you, because your mind can simply return to the writing, and examine where it last left off.

So now I am writing.