10/27/22 - Part 2: On writing
In the past, I have molded and shaped myself to fit other people. When I was dating Matilda, the published writer with the MFA, I stopped writing. I convinced myself that because I didn't have any of that, that I never studied writing or poetry, and that because I used too many "ands", that my writing was less. That it wasn't as good, that it didn't deserve to be read or experienced.
She didn't do that, it was all me, but I still couldn't shake it off. It took me a few months after she broke up with me on that shitty February afternoon, on her blue couch while she clasped my hands together in hers, that I started writing again. Truly writing.
It feels good to write. The further I get from that, the closer I get to my writing, to poetry and prose, to the beauty of thoughts dancing on paper (or a LiveJournal entry). The further I get from the idea that I'm not a writer, that my writing doesn't matter because I don't have a formal education in it, or because it doesn't sound like other people's writing, the closer I get to myself again.
Today I listened to a podcast episode with Gabby Rivera, a self-identified queer brown butch, and she said something that stuck with me. Whatever you need, there's someone out there looking for the same thing. That feels important to my writing in a way I haven't quite deciphered yet.
I mostly write LiveJournal entries in prose form.
When did I decide that because it's not a poem or a full ass fiction story, that it didn't count?