We all fall in love. We fall in love with people, our family, friends, or significant other. We also fall in love with locations. It can be on a balcony watching the sky turn thirty shades of every imaginable color during a sunset or bundled up flying down a snowy hill. And, we fall in love with many other things (I can make a strong argument that one can truly love cherry pie). But, falling in love is less about what the person, location, or thing you love is and more about the way it makes you feel.
Me? I am happily in love. I don’t have a boyfriend (no surprise) and, as much as I like cherry pie, it’s not love. Can one love to write? I’m 100% sure I do.
The first amendment allows me to feel this way. We’re entitled to freedom of the press, free exercise of religion, and freedom of SPEECH. Without this amendment, life and writing would be nothing like we know it. This article is not a historic road trip, but freedom of speech is exactly as it sounds. And it’s exactly why I love to write. My speech is free. I can write about anything. I can write in any form, from any viewpoint, or with any opinion I desire.
If you do not love to write, and I can already hear the swear words you mutter when you’re assigned a four-page essay accompanied by the smell of straight bullshit you put in it, that's okay. But, try to understand where I'm coming from.
How do I explain to you that writing is so much more than anything you can imagine?
Writing is an escape. Writing is when you plunge into deep corners of your brain and vomit out your ideas. See, I didn’t have to throw the verb “vomit” in that sentence, but I did; writing is about making words say what you want to say. There’s nothing stopping you. It’s a purification. It's the way you drain spaghetti noodles in a strainer and watch the water seep. You vent out your emotions, and your thoughts come tumbling out. It’s beautiful.
Writing is about the giddy feeling you get while your pencil is on the paper, or while you’re furiously typing on your computer, stomping on the keyboard, and time actually stops. The world metaphorically stops spinning while you explode creativity.
If you’re still reading this article, I dare you to sit down and write about something you care about. Anything. Write about politics, your dog, a vacation, your boyfriend, whatever you want. Write as little/much as you like. The possibilities are endless, just write.
The beginning paper: a blank sheet staring at you, seemingly innocent. It holds infinite potential. The paper turns into a masterpiece, a scramble of words, sentences, phrases, and ideas; it’s truly limitless. And you. You’re the creator, the dictator, the pilot, the artist, the writer.
Writing is about the feeling afterwards, when you finish your writing. When you realize you spent the last two hours listening to the voice in your brain create magnificent things (and being hungry didn’t even cross your mind… two hours without food is unheard of for me). Or it's when you look at your word count and realize you are 300 over, but don’t give a shit because you enjoyed it so much.
Writing is about saying what you want to say, the way you want to say it. It’s about freedom. And honesty. And expressing yourself. And the pride. And the feeling after you finish writing, like you can do anything. Like you’re smart, you’re a creative genius, and you’re unstoppable.
And when something makes you feel this good, that’s love.
Man, I am in love.
