May I?

May I refer to love again?

I've been discovering lately that love, real love, is not something that can be extracted or expelled.  Either it was there or it wasn't.  I have much love in my heart, but lately my heart has had an iron wall around it, complete with an iron gate and locked padlock.  What used to be an open field became a towering fortress.  What (or who) has caused me to grow so cold is unimportant.  How I can break through that wall is vital.

I've realized that when we put walls around our hearts, those walls are made out of experiences and built upon fears.  And the walls are built stronger through habits.  The wall starts as a 6-inch picket fence that can easily be stepped over, but as you give in more to your own doubts and fears, the wall grows taller, thicker, and stronger. Before you know it, it's a 12-foot wall covered in razor-sharp spikes.

However, these walls can be broken down, as I'm slowly learning.  You must focus on the love within your heart, the love you are so afraid to let out.  Focus on it so it grows, it expands.  While growing, this love builds up pressure, and soon your fortress cannot contain it anymore.  It bursts forth, breaking down the iron bars, burying the spikes in rubble.  What is left is your beautiful heart overflowing with love once again.

When you stop reflecting on your pains, sorrows, and fears.  When you start reflecting on your hope, faith, and love.  This is when the love in your heart can grow.  Your very heart will grow.  Just as the Grinch's heart grew two sizes, so can our hearts grow.  We slowly let in our faith, our God, our spirituality.  We slowly let in our gratitude, our compassion, our love.  And soon, the walls are overcome by these items, and our love is free again.

The coldness has melted away and all that's left is a warm flowing river ready to love and show love.  A gooey heart that can let people and emotions in as well as share them outwardly.

And what are we to do if we do not experience this change of heart?  We must or we cannot survive.  This world would have us believe that the only things that matter are physical and outward.  But I can testify that the only things that matter are the things inside of us that we can share with others around us.  If we conform to the world's meaning of love, that dark, carnal, twisted abomination, we are no better than rocks lying on the road waiting to be walked on or driven over.  We are emotionless zombies feasting on each other's fears and inhibitions.

 If we can turn inwards and upwards to find love, we gain a new zest for life.  We can see the beauty in all things around us, we can appreciate every angle of every situation.  We can see everything for what it is, a blessing.  There is nothing in this life that is not a blessing, whether an obvious or a disguised one.

If we can let go of fears and wrong tendencies and embrace kindness and love, if we can stop being so prickly and let ourselves get along with each other, we can become better, happier people.  Happiness comes in finding love.

Why do I write?

Writing is a sickness, you know.  Consider yourself lucky if you're not infected.  I am very much infected, but it's wonderful.  I wouldn't trade it for the world.  I use my words to create things that could never have been possible.  I can be anyone, anywhere, anytime, and I can make you be anyone.  But with any good thing, there are side effects.

I can't choose when I want to write, it just happens.  It's like being Harry Potter, but you can't summon magic any ole time.  It just comes whenever it feels like it.  As I get to be a better writer, I can call upon my talent and bring it forth, but it's harder that way.  The real side effect is, I can't not write.  I literally might die.  It occupies my mind constantly.  (What if she had this?  What if that was secretly this?  What if they could turn into this?)  There is no rest from it.  If I go for more than a week without writing, I nearly can't function.
Still, if you were to ask me what my greatest possession was, it would be my ability to write.  Writing is the friend that has never abandoned me, never judged me, never stabbed me in the back.  Writing has often times been the only constant in my life.  I could be sitting alone in a storm of chaos and heartbreak, but whatever it is, I can always find comfort in the words my fingers put on paper.

People don't make much sense to me, and you know boys make absolutely zero sense to me, but words?  They make perfect sense.  I'm not the best speaker, but let me write, let me type.  I'll make you a world.  I'll give you an escape.  Sometimes the words don't fall perfectly in place, sometimes I might even get (heaven forbid) writer's block.  But it never lasts long.  It's like a small spat with your true love.  It doesn't last long, and when it's over, you're relationship is even stronger.

Many people have taken many things from me in my lifetime.  And I have given without receiving many times. But it doesn't matter what anyone does to me, what anyone takes from me.  As long as I can write, I know I'll survive.  It's not something anyone can take away; they would have to kill me to extinguish it, but even then it would live on through the words I've written before.  No one can take this gift away from me because it is me.  It's who I am.  My identity: a writer.  Sure there is more to me; I'm actually quite complicated.  But it all boils down to the fact that I'm a writer.

Because I'm a writer, I act like an alcoholic without alcohol if I go too long without writing something.  I assign a story to everyone I meet, and if I can't find their story out, I make one up for them because I'm a writer.  If you've known me for more than a couple hours, I know your life story.  It may be fictional, but I know your story top to bottom.  I create and create and never stop.  Do ants ever stop building ant hills?  No, they keep at it until they die.  There is no quota, no minimum they must meet.  No goal size to make the ant hill.  They just keep going.  And why?  What could they possibly be working towards?  Nothing.  They are gathering and building because it is their nature.  I hope to accomplish things in my life, but that doesn't drive my writing.  Money, fame, a family, or even the ability to influence the world does not fuel me.  I keep writing because it is my nature, and it's the only thing in this life that truly makes sense to me.

I'm commitment-shy about everything else in my life (boys, sports, hobbies, responsibilities), but I've been committed to writing since the first time I wrote my name.  It's the one thing in my life that I never give up on and never let slip away.  And it's the one thing in my life that has never let me down.  Like I said, it's a sickness, an obsession, an addiction.  I couldn't stop if I wanted to.  No Writer's Anonymous group could cure me.  I'm stuck for life, and even after that.  But you know what?  That sounds fine to me.