never again, blank space

Paper doesn't cut it. The prospect of a blank page and a pen gives me aches of perfectionism... no backspace, no spell-check, no fixative for the extra flourish at the end of a word that adds an old-english style "-e." There's an anonymity in this random obscure page that only the deep delvers of the internet world (or those too fond of the "random post" button) will stumble upon. Here, there is the comfort of a web page. Have I gone so far into the world of computers that opening a word document leaves me feeling cold and afraid? Perhaps it is the connection to the vast information that strikes me, or perhaps it is the brightness of the posting templates. More probable is the connection made between a web page and entertainment, rather than work. One opens a personal email in gmail, not in outlook. One writes rants and emails in text boxes on webpages, not in Word. Here I can feel free to not fret over sentence structure and paragraph formation, unless I want to. Here I can evaporate into thin air from time to time, and start over anytime it feels right. Delete is a wonderful friend that the binding of paper pages does not allow.

And I am all about the deleting. When things get hard I pull back and cut back. I remove anything and anyone that bothers me until my comfort level returns. Right now, I want to delete my job, but in order to have the things that I want to have, I must continue doing something I don't necessarily love. Right now, I'd love to delete my roommate who judges me and presents an elitist front more often than I'd like to tolerate, but the lease is signed. Right now, I could delete the empty feeling in my gut, telling me that there is something out there I'm leaving out, that I'm forgetting. But why fill in the gap with another hole?

Instead of removing the broken pieces, I want to find a way to love all the pieces. I know that writing is a path towards this love for me, much as God can be for some. It may seem odd and blasphemous to hear me call my "god-shaped hole" a "word-shaped hole" but I believe that this is an accurate way to describe how I feel. Instead of feeling the need for a personal, powerful being to make sense of the world, I need words. Words encapsulate ideas by definition, yet they allude, inspire, and release more potent ideas from this encapsulation. By defining, words allow me understanding to a depth that expands upon itself. I have found this kind of understanding through faith before, and now I find it through knowing and believing, by defining and releasing, by allowing my thoughts to run away with words until I find myself back at home.

Without my best friend, the words have dried up. She inspires the most interesting conversations and thoughts and without her input i feel blank, time-less and space-less. Instead of rushing the time past me unspoken, unwritten, unaccounted for, I'll attempt to make some account. To put into words what I need to and to let the words exist in blank space that's never blank.