Sometimes we can’t come up with our own words, so we need to find comfort in others’
One time my dad proclaimed that I was a nihilist, that I thought there was no true, deeper meaning to life. He said this because my family is known for getting into very serious, intense and sometimes philosophical conversations about emotions, the meaning of life and how to live. I usually stay silent during these nights, but certainly not because I am a nihilist. Sometimes, the words just don’t come to me. I can’t think of how to express the way I feel or what my beliefs are.
For a while, I actually felt kind of embarrassed by this. I thought that somehow I was on a lower intellectual level than everyone else and maybe I just didn’t have that depth. Later on, when I got into my first relationship, I once again found myself at a loss for words when asked to express how I felt. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel anything, it was just that nothing I could say felt like it captured exactly how I felt. This has been a common theme in my life and it can be frustrating.
Then, there was one moment I had, where I felt so anxious and unable to express, that I found solstice in poetry and the written word. I realized that the words of others could provide me with my own language to express, and also a blanket of safety when I needed to be heard. I also found that writing my own words out, in metaphorical form and fantastical worlds, allowed me to say what I needed to get out.
It was through reading different poetry, some serious and some not, on Pinterest that made me understand how I could express myself. The metaphors and twisty language just spoke to me and made more sense than any straightforward conversation I’d had before. One of the first times I felt the written word really pull me in was when I read part of Mary Oliver’s “In Blackwater Woods” where she tells us, “To live in this world / you must be able / to do three things: / to love what is mortal / to hold it / against your own bones knowing / your own life depends on it; / and, when the time comes to let it go, / to let it go.” I don’t know exactly what broke in me when I read that, but it opened up a new world of expression and understanding for me.
For so long I felt like I wasn’t at the same level as everyone else, and that maybe I would never be able to express deep, longing feelings or emotions. I felt trapped with all of my feelings inside having no way to get out of my body, like it was going to explode out of me. It wasn’t until I realized that there were other ways to feel heard and to be heard that I allowed myself to dip inward and find what I was truly feeling.
Poetry and the written word speak to me louder than anything else. Stories and fairytales and fantastical worlds bring me peace and understanding of both myself and the world around me. It doesn’t have to be particularly deep or fancy language. It can be short quotes on Pinterest or someone’s tattoo you read from a distance. I don’t know if it is my love for literature or my fear of speaking out loud that sparked my attachment to the written word, but whatever it is, I am deeply grateful that it has given me access to the inside of so many others’ brains and allowed me to push out all that was inside. So, if you are feeling stuck inside of yourself, with no release, I encourage you to look elsewhere for the words when you can’t come up with them yourself.