As per usual this post is following my Story 101 prompts, questions and random queries.

Last Sunday night we began our week of silence.  A loud, deafening week in which we were asked to fast from social media, the internet and blogging.

To say that I freaked is an understatement.  You could ask anyone in my group and they would, laughingly tell you about my freak out updates of how I was sure I wouldn’t be able to do it, and how I was afraid of being alone and no one being there when I came back.  (Yes I have abandonment issues.  We’ll discuss this in later posts)

Monday morning I woke up really anxious.  See my usual morning routine is to grab my hot cuppa java and see what the internets have to say to get my day going.  Yeah because that is a GREAT way to start one’s day off on a peaceful note.  Ummmm as I quickly learned it was due time for some adjustment in my routine.  Back to Monday.  Coffee in hand, I climbed back into bed, on my properly piled pillows and heating pad, cause you know (don’t go there with me fool) and was like “shit now what”

My excuse for going straight to the internet and not Jesus, reading or writing is that I am not awake enough until I have had at least one cup of coffee.  However when I said that out loud to myself I suddenly wished there was someone there to bop me on the head.  It seemed to me, to be the most illogical argument.

So after I sat there for 10 minutes twiddling my thumbs thinking DAMN what now, I grabbed my journal and wrote, wrote and wrote.  For who knows how long.  Abigail was quick, as ever to remind me that I had been in my room for FIVE HOURS (that’s 30-45min in 7 year speak)

Then came my second struggle with our week of solitude and silence.  The eh hem silence part.  I cannot seem to ever just be silent.  When I write I must have music on.  I get myself ready and either turn on a playlist or pop in my earplugs.  I have to take a long look at the second part of that word.  Plug.  That is precisely what I am doing.  I am plugging out the sound of myself, the sound of God wanting to speak as I write and the sound of silence (Que Simon and Garfunkle)

However sometimes I do need the music.  If I am at Starbucks, McDonalds or Barnes and Noble where other people’s noise and conversations, although interesting are louder than my thoughts.

As I sat in my bed Saturday night, ready to write, thinking about one of the questions that Elora posed before we went into our week, I plopped those plugs in and dove in.

I couldn’t hear anything beyond muffled thoughts and fear.  Fear?

Yes fear.  If I am silent when I write that means I have to allow myself to be willing to hear.  From God, from the wounded parts of myself and from that place deep within me that is flowing out as I am learning who I am as a writer.

SCARES.THE.SHIT

That question she posed.

“What words am I supposed to be writing, but avoiding”

…………………………………………………………………………………

Of course I know what words and NO I do not want to write them.

In my heart, in my writers core I know they are begging to come out, to be seen, heard, acknowledged and responded to with love and grace.

See that is where the fear comes from.  The avoidance, the why behind not writing them.

Because those words have caused me to be pulled out like the adulterous woman and demanded that I (she) be stoned

Branded with more than one scarlet letter

The pain I have been called to write about is what shaped the identity I am breaking free from

The expectation of who I *was supposed* to be, who I “tried to become” who I was broken to be, and how I am slowly who I really, REALLY am 🙂

But they burn when used the wrong way.  Cut like a knife and leave me running away with hot tears burning down my cheeks.  They have been used wrongly by people who said they loved me, were my “mentors,” in love with me or wanted to protect themselves out of denial.

Denial…..

Throwing pleas in the face of the face of one that hurt you “YES this happened.  This is where we were, and when.”

Daggers being thrown back, sharp and cutting to the quick.  Words that make my bones ache so bad I cannot even type them.  Not yet.

That’s my hard thing.   Writing it all out.  In layers of course.  It’s not just a tell it straight out and read it through kind of hard thing.

My story is multi faceted, deeply wrapped in fleshly hurt.  With colors woven and silver linings in the mix.

The story of me, of my story.  Where to start?  I am not sure.  Yet whenever and wherever I start it’ll lead to the next, then the next and so on.

I will go forth marching my drum that’s always been pounding to a different beat.  But this time, this time I will be ROARING.

As Always,

Bethany

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