crazybrain.

I have been turning my brain over and again, trying to sort things out, trying to make some sense. I have things to say, but when I start to type, my eyes glaze over a bit, maybe I black out for awhile - then I look up and see nonsense all over the screen. Probably because today I have crazybrain. Do you know the feeling?

My mind is full, but almost violently, like thoughts are ricocheting against the inside of my skull too fast and hard for me to hold onto them. It happens. Sometimes life overwhelms us, sometimes for no apparent reason. It happens.

I used to feel the desperate urge to write at these times, but I was completely paralyzed by the chaos, by my inability to organize the thoughts and make sense of them. I have begun to understand that I can let myself ramble sometimes. There doesn't have to be an order, there doesn't have to be an end-product. So it's weird and you sound crazy in the head - so what? The process of writing, even if it's a bit wild and frantic, can be it's own sort of therapy. I read this book about a year ago. The lesson I took from it: be kind to yourself and let the act of writing your story be a way to heal.

It also has taken me some growing and learning to understand that exploring the depth of human feeling means sometimes you are afraid. Sometimes you don't understand where your thoughts come from, sometimes the brain doesn't make sense for a day. Just let it be. There's nothing wrong with you. If you're a thinking person, you'll have questions you can't answer and feelings you don't understand. Just let it be. Keep thinking; plumb the depths. A human being is a piece of work that doesn't always make sense. Just let it be.

I won't share all of my wild and frantic freewriting, but here's a piece from today. No prompt, untimed.

I have crazybrain today. Why am I scared of losing people? It takes over my head some days. I don't like it. I hope I'm not the only one out there who gets crazybrain and who calls it crazybrain. I mean, I started crying at my office. At my office. Do people really do that? I know that if I want to go anywhere with my writing I have to take the leap and cut the veins open and just put it all out there but I am afraid to do it, being so vulnerable, afraid people won't love me and yes, I'll admit it, sometimes I want to write because I want people to love me and acknowledge me and acknowledge my experience. That is something to say. Get it together. Get it together. There are hard things in life. We all know this - some dwell on it more than others. I am obsessed with loss, in particular the loss of people. I know it's weird. I'm especially obsessed with thinking about how people deal with the loss of other people. The feelings that they have. What are those feelings like? What do those feelings look like when you close your eyes? What do those feelings taste like? What color are they? I feel like a zombie my eyes are glazed over don't know how to get the words out days so long days long days long blankblankblankblankblank. Ok, here's what I really need to say. It's fear. It hurts to lose the people you love. You'll survive because people do, but it would hurt. But the more you let yourself love someone, the more it will hurt when one day they're gone. That is a terribly morbid and depressing way to think and I don't believe I'm doing it consciously. But it's there. I'm living for what-comes-next instead of now and I don't mean to and I don't like it. Ah man, I am crazy in the head today. What the hell. Loss loss loss. That woman's blog, the one who lost her husband suddenly. The woman at church who's husband died in a sudden accident. The sign on the door of the hair salon, "Closed: death in the family." Seeing the face of a woman who has just lost her husband. Those feelings must be the most acute form of loneliness. To be known by others is a very deep human desire and to have it fulfilled and then destroyed, to know that everything you shared with a person is now only known to you, man that is human suffering. And here's where I get hung up: it happens all the time, everywhere, every day. People lose spouses, fiances, girlfriends, boyfriends, parents, grandparents, children, friends. It happens and people pick themselves up and carry on. They get out of bed in the morning, they walk the dog, they go to work, they come home and make dinner. And yes, some people have that great holy thing in the dark that they can reach out to in fear, and maybe that helps and maybe that's the point and maybe that's why we have it. It happens all the time. What the hell. Write it out.

Yes, I am scared to show the crazy thoughts. But it's good to know we aren't alone. It's good to talk and to talk about hard things. It's good to be with other people and to let them inspire you.

There are bad things in the world. There are also good people. It's important to be reminded of this often.