What Does It Mean To Be A Writer?

What does it mean to be a writer?

Is it journaling every day and writing the thoughts that flow from the neurons firing in your brain to the blood that flows in your veins to the tips of the hand you are using to transmit emotions to words on a page? Is it that?

Is it waking up three days in a row this week with a heavy chest and reaching for air? Gasping and asking it to stop? Is it gravity pushing down on you and begging for something that you can’t offer yet? Is whatever you are doing going to be good enough?

Did I answer your question yet?

Does it mean crying when you write, chuckling at the sadness of the words you see in front of you? Does it mean staring at the jumble of letters knowing that you’ll never dare allow anyone to read those words?

People will admire the words you have written, not knowing the true emotional pain behind those letters. They will say that they are impressed, that they understand, that they are proud. Do they know the feeling of missing someone, of being heartbroken, of giving your all to people who tip you away like the waste from a cigarette butt?

Writing means jumping headfirst into the abyss of the ocean knowing that there may be sharks waiting for you and cheering you on as you sink deeper and deeper. It means hoping that just before the crisp splash, something catches you and you’ll feel utter relief.

But what if that doesn’t happen? What if you jump in headfirst and sink in an unimaginable way?

All of a sudden you’ll realize that those nights that you felt like gravity was taking the best of you were mere practice.

Writing means being able to breathe and to let go. To let yourself stand ever-so-tall once you get back up. Writing means not giving up on yourself and your dreams. Writing allows you to build the bridge between the pain you felt and the hope you have.

Maybe all I’ve written contradicts what you think being a writer means, but here I am at the end of the page to tell you that this is what wiring means to me.