How-To

Do you remember writing how-to essays in elementary school?  Those nice papers where you would fill up your lined pages with instructions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or how to set up a lemonade stand.  Those were the best - you always knew you could come up with something and it wouldn't take too long, as long as you followed the steps correctly.

Well.  I wish there was a how-to on how to live my life right now.  There is no easy instruction section, filling up the body of the day and saying "first... next... then... finally" and ending with a nice little conclusion where everyone is happy with their little peanut butter sandwich.  There is no rulebook for how to proceed, what to do, what to say, how to get through the steps and end up being okay.

So how do I do this?  How do I say that I'm not okay, and I'm okay with not being okay, and it's okay to not be okay?  How do I say what I am thinking and feeling without sharing too much, or sounding pitiful, or immature, or disrespectful, or all kinds of other bad things?  How do I explain how much I hate all of this, yet am hopeful for my future, yet am terrified for my future, yet would do it all again, yet wish none of this had ever happened?

One option would be to not say anything.  I've thought about that.  Done that, for a time.  Especially those times when there are no words.  But then, silence is not always golden.  There is a great deal of healing that comes from verbal expression.  (That's why it's so devastating for people who have aphasia or severe dysarthria or a laryngectomy - talking about stuff is kind of the thing to do, for humans.)  And yeah, I could write in a journal.  Talk to my cat.  Talk to my mom.  Keep everything inside my head.

But that's not good enough.  While I do not plan to mourn, or whatever, ad nauseum for the rest of eternity, I think it's important to just feel free to talk about whatever I need to talk about.

I know facebook is not my diary.  Twitter is not my diary.  My blog is not my diary.  But these words and this act of writing and expressing and sharing and all those communicative, human, needs are a little part of those steps I need to take to get through the first, and the next, and the then, and eventually, the finally, and finish setting up my lemonade stand so I can start doing something productive with these lemons life has given me.