I've been trying to get back into the swing of the writing thing for a long time now. Throughout high school, my first year of college, and the summer after, the words flowed out like... well, like water, though I was never one to avoid cliches. I enjoyed writing; I knew I was good at it, even better than average. Like French, it came to me more easily than to some of my friends, and unlike, say, biology, I cared that it came easily. It meant a lot to me. It meant a whole lot.
September 11th happened, and I was in Union Square, which isn't far downtown, but which isn't Rockdale County, either. I made some bad decisions, which added a layer of personal failure and disgust to the terror and the tragedy. I got my first tattoo on September 13th. Just before Thanksgiving, I got some apparently undiagnosable form of food poisoning or parasite. It lasted through Christmas, and dropped 20 pounds off my frame. Throughout all of that, writing was the only constant. I wrote about the attacks. I wrote about what I did to respond to them. I wrote about getting the tattoo, and about what my parents would do if they ever found out. I wrote about the illness, about losing the weight, and about trying to eat normally after I finally got better.
In the autumn, I moved to Paris for a semester abroad. My creativity exploded. I had never felt more myself. I have never written more. I felt completely at home. I fell head over heels for the city, and for a boy/man. Man/boy. He wasn't really either, but I fell head over heels for him, and it was perfect. Until it wasn't. Until he left me to have a liaison with a perfect, golden French couple.
Apparently, by that time I had lost 30 pounds. Apparently, I had stopped writing, too. I was so wrapped up in the eating disorder that had slowly but surely been sneaking up on me since I was sick the previous fall, I never noticed when these major parts of me tiptoed away. My breasts were the first to go, then my hips, then my waist, then my thighs, my calves, and that last bastion of body fat - the little hollow behind your armpit and shoulder. And somewhere in there, I stopped writing. It had been such an integral part of my life for... my entire life. When I was four, I dictated stories to my mother about witches eating children and elephants escaping zoos, only to discover the perfect purple flower. You think that when these huge pieces of your life disappear, you'll notice the difference. But my writing had just dissolved into the background, and no one had noticed, especially not me.
Going back to New York proved paradoxical. I remember staring at my protruding collar bones, the part of my sternum now visible through the skin between my tiny, oddly-shapen breasts. I remember thinking, "This isn't how women are shaped." I composed an entire poem in my head. That one made it to paper, but just barely. There are a few poems and short blurbs that belong only on a pro-ana site. But once I started putting on weight, even when it came off again, I couldn't seem to write anymore.
I met the love of my life, we moved in together, built a life together, and now we're engaged. He watched me get my boobs back, my waist back, my thighs back, and contrary to my deepest fears, he didn't run away. I gave up theatre, gave up acting, started making more money, started shaping my life as an Adult, and the writing slipped farther and farther away. I got a job that is completely uninspiring, makes me think I will never make it back to the world of plays, novels, or passion. I love my relationship, and I love my family. But I miss my writing. I've tried, and I don't know how to get it back. I don't know if I'm keeping myself from it, or if it's actually gone for good.
Wish me luck.
