Writing From Experience

So, you all know that I’ve been writing my book. It’s been quite struggle to carve out time from my busy crazy days to get a substantial amount of writing in. But it is coming along. I love it. I love the process that I am going through as well. Most times. The fun part comes after the painful one though. I have been going through old journal entries, trying to bring back all the laid-to-rest memories of this journey. Some, I would have completely forgotten had it not been for my crazy obsession to journal and my neat penmanship back in high-school. Old memories. Old feelings. Bad memories and bad feelings. Nevertheless, the fun part is coming. I just know it. I can already see it. It is the part where I see where my life is now and how God has brought me through the thickest of storms, still sane. Mostly.

But last night was not a fun part. And this is a true confession to all this madness.

I have finished the introduction and am currently writing the opening chapter. The one where I believe, everything starts. It’s title is undecided, but the main point is about how one can create, within her mind, what I call a false reality. It’s something that is clearly not real, feelings that are not justified, or thoughts that are lies we have conjured up in our minds. Especially women. As I was writing, I decided it would be good to input some examples of false realities that I have created in my own life. Lies that, in the moment, I choose to believe. And there are plenty to choose from, but for some odd reason I could not put them down on paper. The words just would not come. The countless experiences seemed to have vanished at the one and only beneficial and needed time! So I prayed. Asking that God would remind me of some. I didn’t ask to relive them, just to remind me of them. You know, as if they were someone else’s stories I was able to preview as a quick jog to my memory. Well that is just not the way it works.

Last night, I had a bad dream. More like a nightmare. Now, this is normal for me. The ratio of good dreams to bad dreams in my life is quite a tipped scale in favor of the bad dreams. But for the last 3 months or so I have had them every night. Usually I wake up in a funk, still feeling the emotions I did in my dream. Frustration, anger, fear. But they shake off before breakfast and I move on with my day. Most times. But then there are days like today when those emotions just wont release.

Without boring you of the details, in my dream I was being stalked by 3 men. Not like paparazzi stalked. Like creeper status stalked. Finally I asked everyone in my house to lock all the doors so they wouldn’t get in. I ran to one of the rooms in my house to lock the doors and there was already a man in there. As I flipped the light on, he jumped at me in attack, and at the moment shook myself out of my sleep. Of course I started bawling and woke my ever-so-amazing husband in a fright and he held me the rest of the night.

However, despite my intense desire to fall back asleep, I couldn’t. I have been awake since 3AM. I thought maybe I was just spooked so I got up, walked around. Even brushed my teeth again Trying everything to get me out of this weird weird state. At 8:30A I went to breakfast with a dear friend. I thought maybe I was coming out of it because we were laughing and crying and sharing, but then I realized the lies and fear were still there. This guy came in and sat in the booth across from us and the whole time I had this weird fear that he was watching me. Stalking me. He didn’t even look like a creeper but I was seriously afraid despite the fact that I knew he wasn’t. So when I got home, I talked to Ty about it [in tears] and he not only talked me back to reality, he gave me profound insight into what was going on. He said, “You realize what is happening right? You are doing research for your book.”

Bingo.

You see, when one is in the moment of false reality, it’s all they can see. I could have [and partially did] lived this whole day in fear and frustration if I didn’t have my husband to pull me out. I needed his perspective to prove that mine was skewed. It was false.

So today has been a day of research. A day of fear. But also a day of answered prayer. My memory is jogged and so today has also made great progress in my newness as a writer. All to say, I am writing from experience.

~JM