Travel in the Writer’s Wilderness: Hope when Others See What is Lost

Every writer travels into a new wilderness in their life.

We will want to leave the Arizona deserts at some point, or maybe tired of the California or Carolina coasts. Maybe we appreciate New York winters for a time, but want to travel South later. Maybe we hate the South because it’s too primitive to some from other places, so we search for another place where it’s always warm.

Every writer finds a different plain.

If we don’t, we stop growing.  Sometimes we return to something familiar, and we make it different.  I started my second blog, The Bridesmaid Reject, out of the need for us all to discuss mental illness. I also discuss my journey with my son through autism.

Lately, I’ve shared some poetry on that blog also because of its connection with my recent experiences.

I have written in short spurts while teaching.  I have stayed too long in the New York upstate winter.  I am returning to the coasts I love where it’s warm and writing comes off the tip of my fingers on a keyboard. I am still working with my memoir, but I’m also writing poetry again. It’s pouring out of me as if I’ve held it in for too long.

In April, I was diagnosed with PTSD in connection to where I have worked. It is not just one place because I enjoyed parts of where I worked, but when your doctor and therapist tell you, “Do you realize you’re talking like someone going into a war zone each day?” something might be wrong. I know my diagnosis also dates back to some of my experiences as a journalist that I never properly deal with.

Yes, it’s time to move forward, and to move forward, I have to now work through my triggers, reactions, and nightmares.  For example, I do not want to enter a crowd unless I have to. I always hated airports, but I strongly dislike any large crowd now.  I did not attend the eighth grade graduation of students I taught for two years; not because I was callous or did not care. I stayed home to prevent the triggers from setting me off.

I will go into crowds again. I will continue to work as a teacher with a level head at a different school.  I have to work through the solutions.  I think the biggest misconception is that I’m depressed or unhappy. I’m not either.  It’s like you’ll hear several people talking at once, and you can’t stand it. I have two reactions. I shout louder than I ever have for them to “Be quiet,” or I shut down and do not talk at all.

I’m like a house that’s been set on fire. Firefighters put it out in time to save it. The house is only damaged. It can be restored and made more beautiful than before.  It is why I wrote poems like “They Say I Lost my Hope.” 

I know I will find peace now, and be the mom I want to become. I know I will be a happier person because of the therapies, writing, and Yoga I’ve chosen to do.  After this post, I am sharing a poem I wrote for my husband called “Daisies on the Fields of France.”