Day 0: 30 Days of Words

Day 0: 30 Days of Words

I challenge myself to thirty days of words. Here, in public, where people will know when I am not holding up my end of the bargain. When I make promises to myself, it's like I need outside eyes, keeping me accountable. (Hey, it works for bootcamp fitness classes.)

I want to write, every day, for 30 days. Anything, a poem, an album review, a journal, advice, whatever, I want words to pour from my fingers. An outlet for the chaos and noise that keeps me up at night. An outlet for the pounding nothingness.

For the last few years, as spring turned to summer, I experienced a near-crippling bout of depression. Like seasonal-affective disorder, but backwards- one that's more put off by heat and humidity than a lack of sunshine. My normal depression, which I fight to bury in the depths of my skull, bursting out and magnified. 

That coupled with my more recently diagnosed anxiety means my brain is full to the brim of words. Wiggly, squirming, anxious-to-get-out, clawing-at-my-skull words. Some words are harmless lists of tasks to be completed. Some are ideas for stories I'll never write. Some relive awkward and painful and beautiful childhood memories as I drift off to sleep. Some tell me that my life to this point is a mess and a disaster and its a wonder I am trying to accomplish anything at all. Those words are said in a voice that doesn't belong to me, but they fill my brain all the same.

Instead of being held prisoner by my words- or keeping the words imprisoned in my brain- I challenge myself to 30 days of expression.