I've received some unexpected encouragement with my writing which is really appreciated and pushing me to continue to make public my sorry, pathetic, and like-watching-paint-dry life. (I'm impressed that I'm finding such enjoyment in the act). It inspired me to write my latest entry which continued to garnish even more incredible encouragement. So thank-you everyone for taking an interest and your comments are all so appreciated.

Through-out my school years writing was this thing that seemed to hover and lurk around me. I felt labelled as "one who must write" early on by my community and teachers. The expectations I felt for achievement grew on me each year as I continually did especially well at written and creative projects. My work would often be entered in contests accomplishing a win of some sort, and when one is from a community of only 300 people, it's A) not a difficult thing to out beat competition and B) the tiniest of accomplishments not only get noticed but printed in the paper and celebrated by everyone, which has both positive and negative affects. Our town was so desperate to have its yellow-y pages of the Veteran Eagle filled that it didn't take much more than not missing a single day of school to get your name and picture printed on the front of it's page. That was definitely not an accomplishment of mine however-a perfect attendance, I rarely made a week with out not missing a day. I digress.

Whether these school-year achievements of mine (should one call them achievements) are an actual reality or just a miscued perception made by myself (and of course my mom), I seem to recall being in that paper lots, winning awards upon awards, year after year. (As a side note, I do however take very little credit as any successes I may have had are solely due to the highly competitive nature fostered in me by my dear father, (through the constant and necessary proving of my betterment over the "boy-child"), and my extremely doting and talented mom who was invested 110%behind all my endeavors-oh and we might as well toss in a desperate need for some sort of vehicle of escapism from crazy domestic dysfunction...some had drugs, some cut themselves, I had science fairs and poetry contests to win).

The thing about doing well in school when you're young is that it's, well, 100% not cool, and you risk getting beat up and shoved in lockers-Ok I don't think that ever happens outside of Saved by The Bell. I never did have to get intimate with any lockers or beat up, I was forced instead into a delicate juggle of feigning un-interest in the things which actually did interest me, pushing an attitude when there really wasn't one to be pushed, and of forever being disconnected from and hating the act of doing the things which I actually did well at. I programmed myself to hate writing, something I'm now realizing caused much confusion to me, it blocked me from expressing myself in a way I was actually able to express well in. It created a dichotomy of which I'm just now starting to be able to fuse together.

I've struggled with this silly struggle since child hood, the labeling of myself as a writer. Something I did well at-or so I've been told, and yet hated hated hated doing. For many adult years I pushed myself to try and do this thing I hated because I felt it was what I should do since I was kind of not bad at it and everyone told me I should-I usually do everything I'm told. It was like a chore, taking the garbage out, no enjoyment and only anger when having to do it. But this last year has been changing that. When I was beyond effed up, and amidst hair pulling craziness, writing emerged as my best friend, it was all that I could do to bring clarity to my upside down shaken world. It sorted my jumbled head, and laid out my heart in black and white when reason abandoned me and was nowhere to be found. I began to write alot this year, in a private blog I kept I allowed my pen to bleed for me and cry for me, to express for me. I wrote because I wanted to, because I needed to, and because I actually enjoyed to.