3AM

it's 3 AM, i'm awake and my heart's still dreamin'...

when you're an inveterate insomniac like i am, you're given to rumination while the rest of the world slumbers peacefully away. i think the fact that i spend so much time awake and contemplating my navel explains how i came to be a writer, and also how i developed my style. i write to y'all as if we're sitting at the coffee shop together, talking about things. i also write in my analog journal as if it's a friend. you won't believe what i've done now, journal. it's only crazy if you expect an answer. a lot of y'all are bloggers/writers/etc. yourselves. you understand this disease better than most, i think.

sometimes this is work
and don't you know sometimes this is play
sometimes you're listening to me
sometimes, you don't hear a damn word that i say

writing, for yourself or for others, is a different enterprise than talking to people in real life. that's why i often resort to writing out big important statements i have to make in my life and submitting them to their intended audience in writing. when i left the ex, i did so in a carefully crafted seven-page handwritten letter, one that took me three drafts and several hours to compose. but i made my case one hundred times more clearly than i could've if i'd had to contend with nerves, speaking to him in the face. some call it cowardice; i call it clarity. when you take a step that momentous, precision and accuracy are the most important possible things.

sometimes, writing something down is the only way to make damn sure someone gets the message. i can talk to someone about some subjects until i'm blue in the face, and the words just become a wall of noise that washes over him. he gets the idea, but he tunes me out. not out of malice; he just doesn't believe in words past a certain point. he's a man of action. i have grown to appreciate that about him, and to learn to look for what he's telling me in other ways. but asking me to stop using so many words would be tantamount to asking me to stop using so much oxygen.

but i'll keep chasing my dreams
and only you can make them real
i pour my heart out every night
but do you know the way that i feel?

so i write to him. sometimes i write to him directly; other times, i write to him here, knowing he won't really see it. (he only reads when i show him specific things.) in the rarest of times, i commit the words to my analog journal, in the age-old ritual of pen to paper. i feel, big and broad, all the time. writing gets it out, manages the feelings, turns the intangible into the tangible. i make damn sure i'm heard, even if it's just in the security of my notebooks. maybe it's a control thing, but i want it made crystal clear exactly how i feel. lucky for me, i've got the tools to make it happen.