Unsent Letters

Have you ever written a letter to someone - a real, honest to goodness handwritten letter - and never sent it to them? Maybe you intended to put it in the mail but didn't. Maybe you wrote it late at night and then read it to yourself by the morning light and decided there was no way that letter was fit to send. Maybe you wrote the letter with no intention of ever sending it.

Maybe you wrote the letter, poured your heart and soul into it, just to get the thoughts out of your head and the feelings out of your heart. As though with each stroke of the pen, the paper could absorb the very emotion you were trying to convey, and thereby the burden in your heart would be lessened.

I have written many such letters.

I have stayed up late on so many nights, writing words on paper through eyes blurred with tears, a mind bogged down in regret, and a heart heavy with sorrow. I have written word after word with ink that ran because of the tears falling onto the page.

There are so many things that happen in the course of a lifetime. So many loves, so many losses, so many triumphs, and so many soul crushing defeats. And sometimes, if you are a person with no one in your life close enough to you to share things with, you get so encumbered by all of the happenings that you feel you are drowning in a sea of frothy emotion. Unable to stay afloat or swim to shore, yet unable to sink far enough down to reach the peace of sweet oblivion.

I have been there. That has been me time after time throughout my life. And in those times of emotional heartache and despair, I have reached for the only lifeline I have ever found to be constantly there, no matter what - a pen and a piece of paper.

I have written until my hands ached. I have written until sleepiness has edged my words to the brink of incoherence.  I have written until the ink in the pen has run dry and until every inch of blank paper has been filled. I have opened a notebook and put pen to page until every ounce of love, hatred, fear, lust, hope and sorrow has been drained from my soul. And then I closed the notebook and put it away somewhere safe, where neither I nor the rest of the world could ever be affected by those words.

In effect, I have written to save my life.
It's something I have always done, and something I will always to. Because no matter what else the world has taken or will take from me, it can never take my words.