For the love of writing (Day #7)

So it’s been a week since I started my 30 days writing challenge. There is one word that describes how I feel now, grateful. I never thought I would enjoy this challenge so much.

As I wrote before, the reason why I started the challenge was to force myself to write more. I love writing, and I felt I was letting myself down. No more.

Writing allows me to feel alive

I thought it would be hard for me to write every day. It wasn’t. Not only it hasn’t been hard, but it’s been quite the opposite. Every morning I wake up craving for more writing. It’s been exhilarating. It’s hard to describe how it feels.

Writing allows me to feel alive. It allows me to express who I am; it allows me to feel free, to let go. It’s as if I had a voice I had been silencing for too long.

Yesterday was a good example of this. I was tired. Very tired. We just took our kids’ pacifiers away that night, and no one got a good night sleep. On top of that, yesterday was a national holiday, so we spent all day with the twins. We had no moment for ourselves. Nothing. Nada. From 9 am to 9 pm, non-stop. Rinse and repeat.

At 9 pm we started making dinner and my wife suggested me to get started with my post. I was feeling exhausted. I wanted to talk about clinging, but it seemed like a daunting task to undertake, especially feeling as drained as I was. I sat down, pulled my earplugs, kicked in some music and faced the empty space.

I feel someone else wrote the article and I’m just a spectator

Next thing I remember was my wife tapping me on the shoulder and asking if we were going to have dinner. It was 10:20 pm. I had lost all track of time.

I read my post again. When did I write that? Was it me? Sometimes I feel like that; I feel someone else wrote the article and I’m just a spectator. I felt alive again, tiredness evaporated. I had to lift my hands from the keyboard as the were already itching to go back to work.

But maybe the most precious gift of this writing challenge is the inspiration it’s generating. In one week I’ve seen four people start the writing challenge inspired by me. I feel vertigo, and so humbled by the fact.

Thank you.

I want to mention two of them because, not only I think they’re great writers, but because their stories are deep, profound and extraordinary. Both are women. Both are very special to me. The only way I can define them is as old souls.

We keep bumping into each other’s lives at odd moments in life, sometimes briefly. But the truth is that I treasure each and every encounter with them.

Thank you, Anca and Adina for taking the leap. Thank you for sharing your world with us. And thank you for making my writing even more meaningful to me.

This post is part of my 30 Days Writing Challenge. If you want to check out the previous posts, here you have an index.