blocked...

I've always found it silly and cliche to call myself a writer.

"Hi, I'm Sarah Anne -- a 20-something volunteer addict who checks out more books from the library than she can read in a month, stresses over everything you can possibly imagine and more, owns a dog, is engaged, and has a bunch of other things she should be doing but is probably watching Netflix instead.

Oh, and I'm also a writer."

It's always an afterthought. Almost a confession, like it's embarrassing to admit because I, like some others, hear people say, "I'm a writer" and immediately do a silent eye-roll while smiling enthusiastically, "Oh, are you ? That's great!" Never asking their genre or subject or storyline. Never offering help or the tidbit about being a 5-star writing tutor for over a year in college. Just the internal eye-roll and the smile.

Let's just say I've helped with far too many terrible writing projects of which the author was over-proud and overzealous.

So now that I have this confession -- I'm a bit embarrassed.

I. Am. A writer.

Like many self-conscious and conflicted students of words, I keep it to myself. Mostly. And, I go through long periods of inactivity. Days and weeks and months of time pass without setting a pen to paper or fingers to keys, because writing? Writing really well?

It's exhausting.

And the thing about writing and writing well is that when you know how to do it, and you've seen all of the ways people go wrong. . .well. You get even more blocked than you did before. You edit as you go -- instead of word vomiting all over the page and saying, "Hell yeah, that's a plot hole -- Ima fix it on the next round. Deal with it." You get paraylzed by the need for just the right word; just the perfect way of expressing all that stuff swirling around inside your head.

Justice is served with the perfect word.

Falling short. Because it's an injustice to the story and the feeling and the experience if the words aren't just right. That's the main thing for me. I can't find the perfect word, the just-right piecing together of the dictionary's tenants into a party that screams THIS IS IT! THIS IS THE ONE!

The sentence of the year. The story of the decade.

It's not that I want people to think that the story is perfect. It's that I want how I feel and think to be expressed perfectly -- for myself. So I can represent all of the twisting mess of feeling and strangeness taking place inside my head.

Why else would I be awake at 3am every night? Unable to sleep because images that need description plow through my mind with reckless speed. Yet, I can't find the words. "Play on!" says Shakespeare, "Play on!" Like an old VHS recording on fast forward, my static-filled mind joins with him -- play on!

But there is Hamlet, standing with his now iconic skull, posed as the Boy in Black. "To sleep -- perchance to dream."

Dreaming isn't the problem. It's sleeping that makes no sense to me.

Because words, words, words are the real issue. Which one to use, which to strike from existence, weighing the options of this one and that one. Literally keeping me up at night. Even the placement is cause for grief. Put it there? Or over there? A comma? A colon? I use that form of punctuation (the colon) and think of cancer every time. Probably because someone I know died of it a few months ago.

What I'd write about?

I'd write about dad's cancer.

I'd write about our cancer jokes.

I'd write about how when I make cancer jokes in public, few and far between people get offended, saying angrily "You shouldn't talk like that, it's offensive!" and I shrug and say, "Well, seeing as my dad is terminal, it's kind of how we deal with it"; and then they just sit there, quiet, like dad is dead instead of dying.

I'd write about my own kind of cancer, the flashbacks and post-traumatic stress disorder episodes; silent killers that come out of nowhere like a poisonous viper and strike when the sun is out and you're in love and then WHAM. The snake bites your ankle while you stare at it wondering why you didn't see the thing lying on the pavement.

Plenty of colons and commas and heres and theres to satisfy even the pickiest of word readers -- unless of course you're including me in the bunch.

Reading is easy. Writing, and those who can accomplish it -- now, that deserves all of the glory.

living with depression and all that comes with it...

Things that go bump in the night go bump in the day;

the difference so little that time slips away

-- exhaustion.

night time...

I spend little time outside. I realized this two days ago, when I was lying on the grass at the park and I was struck by the fact that the sky is blue. Running an average day's schedule through my head, it became clear that being outside isn't really a "thing" in my life. Which is very sad.

As I've thought about it more, I've also realized that I do get outside -- I just get outside during the night time. For some reason I'm a lot more comfortable outside when the sun has gone down. Perhaps it's the fact that it requires zero sunscreen (I burn like you wouldn't believe [no, really -- I get sunburned sitting at stoplights with the car windows rolled up]). Or maybe it's because it's dark and that means my eyes don't hurt, which means no headaches from bright sunlight.

Both contribute to why I prefer venturing out of doors at night. And -- this is just sad -- there are a lot fewer people out after dark. No one bothers me at midnight when I'm sitting out in the driveway looking at the stars, and no one wants to talk when I'm driving down the freeway at two in the morning with the windows down and the radio turned up loud.

I like the night. I like the quiet, and the coolness -- I have a rather startling number of sweaters, so the cold doesn't bother me too much. I like that the rest of the world is sleeping and that I'm not. Sometimes it's lonely. Sometimes it's very lonely, and a little scary. But I like to think that somewhere, there is someone else enjoying the night time, just like I am.

While all of this is fine and good, I really should get outside in the sunshine more often. I don't think the moon produces any vitamin D, and I might be less depressed if I get out of this vampire-like habit and, you know. Interact with day time lovers or something.

the me I was...

After a couple of hours spent trying to sleep, I've given up for the moment.

I keep thinking about who I used to be a few years (or even months) ago. In a lot of ways, I'm haunted by the image of the old me and wish desperately to go back to who that girl is. And at the same time, I'm just as disturbed by the pain I feel when I see all of the changes in my life.

The changes have been for good. I no longer starve myself. I no longer do a lot of things that were really quite bad for me. Yet I'm dissatisfied.

I look at myself in the mirror with contempt. I despise what I see -- the thickened waistline, the fuller hips and breasts, the presence of more me everywhere. I hate that.

I feel like I've completely lost control -- I can't go without eating anymore. I get so sick when I don't, most likely because of the years I spent keeping myself to under 1,000 calories per day, if I made it even close to that. I see pictures of myself from just last year and compare them to how I look now, and I want to cry.

I want to cry because I'm "not skinny."

How stupid is that? How ridiculous is it that I berate myself for every thing I put inside my mouth? Even as my brain says that I need to eat, and that eating is good for me, my brain also screams to stop because I'm FAT.

My diet isn't bad. I eat a lot of good foods, and I go for walks several times a day. That's about all I can do right now, as my body still gets worn out very quickly. I'm not complaining -- there have been times when all I could do was lie in bed and pray that the pain would go away. Walking is a joy. The pain I experience after a long walk is worth it, because I'm walking. And not a slow stroll walk either, but actually walking to have some sort of activity in my life.

Despite it all, my pants still get tighter. My shirts aren't baggy. There is more of me than there has been in years, and I have to force myself out of a panic when I feel myself starting to get hungry (also a new development -- in the past five years, I forgot how to feel hungry). I have to make myself be calm and remind my brain that if I don't eat, I'll get sicker.

I miss the old me. I know it's stupid. I know it's wrong. I know that weight isn't the important thing.

But I don't believe it. And I wish that I could go back.

i'm wide awake...

I've slept for about 12 hours in the last three days.

Just can't sleep. I can honestly say that I am in a constant state of terror. Literally, I'm barely functioning. TERRIFIED (and annoyed because all of the sudden my "o" key is struggling a lot).

However, I found a good way to get my mind off of things. It's called North & South on Netflix. Last night I couldn't sleep, not even with the night light on, so I got on the computer and searched Netflix for kicks. There it was, like a shining, glorious beacon of hope and truth in the dark -- Mr. Thornton and Miss Hale, fighting for their definitions of justice and mercy, passionate in their beliefs and their eventual love.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I only watched two episodes last night -- up until three because I was too exhausted to sleep.

I wish I didn't have to go to school anymore. I'd just stay awake all the time, because I wouldn't have to try and sleep.

On that note, I curse the "o" key and say good night.

i made a better baby...

I am writing to celebrate a momentous occasion. I have now, officially! Slept through an entire night.

It's momentous because that's the first time in years. Literally, years. Even when I take sleep aids, I wake up two or more times and have a hard time falling asleep again. Last night, however, I slept straight through, like I used to when I was a wee thing.

Really, I was a good sleeper when I was a baby. My mom said that she woke up often to make sure I was still alive because I never cried or made any noise. She'd often find me just staring up at the ceiling, thinking whatever baby thoughts I had in the dark nursery.

Or perhaps I wasn't a good sleeper, if I was so often found awake. Maybe I was just a very quiet, very young insomniac.

Sleep feels good.

I could get used to this.

getting nothing done...

As you've probably noticed, I am a list person. Lists of things that make me smile, playlists of music, to do lists, things I'm thinking about lists, to be lists, this and that lists. If you can line it up with some bullet points, numbers, or dots, I like it.

What I don't like is the increasing length of my to do lists (yes, plural). It is such a struggle these days to get anything done -- my homework, cleaning my room (I've lost many battles, but I am not losing this war), packing up stuff I can store, sorting through things that I no longer need, writing to missionaries -- everything seems so very hard to do. I can't focus, and I don't even want to focus.

Why, do you ask? Because I'm exhausted.

Seriously. I am so, so, SO tired all the time. The worst part of it is that I can never sleep well. It takes me a really long time to fall asleep, and then when I do, I don't stay asleep for long. My greatest wish is to sleep longer than two hours without waking up. When I was younger I could sleep through almost anything -- once I even slept through the smoke alarm that went off when it got a whiff of some wandering cigarette smoke that came in through the air vent. That scared my parents quite badly. They needn't worry anymore. Nowadays the door opening upstairs (which is a flight of stairs above me and on the other end of the house), or the sound of my dad's phone beeping in his room (which is two flights above me on the opposite side of the house from me), or the crickets in the evening and the birds in the morning, or any other number of small noises wake me up.

Not to mention I dream all the time. I crawl in bed exhausted, but due to the number of dreams and their contents I wake up feeling more tired than I was before.

I lack motivation these days. I get the most important things done (most of the time), and then I have no energy left. And so I watch the to do list grow, fretting because of how fast it is lengthening. Then I put it away because item number one is at least attemptable. It doesn't always go as I plan, but I can at least try. Plus...it's the easiest thing to cross off...item number one being "take a nap."

again...

Laughing much harder than is appropriate.