A fellow blogger posted this painful but beautiful poem recently to her blog, Boomie Bol. Her poems are consistently powerful but this one resonated with me in timely and potent ways.

I’m hurting emotionally right now for reasons that aren’t relevant to this post except to say it’s my own damn fault. Turning the hurt into words on the page is the only thing that makes sense to me at the moment. I’m not even sure I’m turning the hurt into words because I can’t bear to write about the thing itself. I am writing, though. I’ve been working on my novel revisions almost every day. I’ve also been making comments on the WP blogs I follow and the writing community on Twitter as I normally do although nothing feels normal. At first, I thought I was doing it all because I was trying to keep negative thoughts at bay but that’s impossible. Then I read the Boomie Bol poem and thought to myself, That’s it. I don’t want to waste my misery. I said before in another post that I don’t write because I want to, I write because I must. So, if I must write it seems natural that I should use my misery to drive the process. I think it’s what many writers do.

I didn’t want to blog because it feels like exposing myself at my most vulnerable.  But I committed to trying to post at least once a month and I take that commitment seriously. I can’t get past the distress so it was unavoidable that this post would reflect that. I’m not going to promote it the way I usually do by way of an email blast and social media. I don’t really care how many folks read it or how many “likes” I get this time. I have to write anyway, and the WordPress community has always been kind to me so why not. Thank you for being here with me. Thank you to Boomie Bol as usual, for the truth in your words.

This too shall pass…