Needing to Write

I should be sewing, or cleaning house, or doing any number of other more "productive" things, but for whatever reason, today I need to write.  I need to just sit here in front of this keyboard and keep pressing these keys to make them say something, anything.  I don't even know what I need to write about, I just know I need to write!  For days I have been fighting it, just pumping out an occasional blog post between seams when someone pissed me off enough, but today I can't fight it anymore. so I am going to sit here and keep typing until the obsession passes. 

I have mentioned before to those who follow along that I pretty much stopped writing for nearly 25 years because of the risks it posed to my real world make believe life.  I couldn't let people know who I really was, or how I really felt about much of anything because my family wouldn't have approved.  I let their narrow minded world views inhibit nearly every aspect of my personality, and my creativity, for more than half of my life.  I can't do it any more. 

When I blew up at my Father last year before Christmas I know I should have felt bad.  I should be saddened by the fact that no one in my extended family has made a single effort to speak to me since then.  But I don't.  I don't feel bad for what I said, I do feel bad for waiting so many damn years to say it, but I don't feel bad for saying it.  They have no idea how much pain they have caused me all my life by treating me as if there was something "wrong" with me not thinking like they did. They silenced and belittled me all of my life for having any opinion at all contrary to theirs, and they had absolutely no interest in knowing anything about who I really was or what I wanted from my own life. 

I wasn't sad when they walked out of my life, I was relieved.  A great weight was suddenly lifted from my shoulders.  As if a giant anchor that had been weighing me down and holding me back all of my life, had suddenly broken free from its chain and there was nothing restraining me any longer.  I am still learning to find my voice, as a writer, as an artist, and as a person, but I am finally free to find it.  My husband and my oldest son keep trying to find ways to heal the wounds between me and my Mother, but I can't go back to being silent and withering away in the corner anymore, and I know that is the only way she will ever accept me.  I tried all my life to be close to her, but the price I had to pay in losing myself is not something I am willing to pay anymore. 

I am who I am supposed to be.  I like who I am.  I like the life I have chosen for myself, it has not always been easy, but it has always been mine.  I have made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I have learned from everyone of them and I hope I have become a better person because of them.  I don't profess to be any better than any other person on the planet, but I refuse to stand by silently anymore while someone else claims that I am somehow less than they are because I don't believe what they do.  Fuck that noise.  Did that far too long already, I am done.  I am no better than anyone else, but there is also no one better than me.