Floodgates

We all have moments where we are screaming into the void. Times where we sound unheard. Where the cacophony of life just drowns us out. 

I was there for a very very long time. I finally feel like I have the surety and confidence to be heard above that. I'm not who I was in the past.

Part of what was holding me back could have been not knowing what to say. Not having something to say. It was not just the surety, but the lack that informed so much of the discourse that came out of my mouth, and from my pen.

I'm struggling to express exactly how much it means to be a little more free. Physical fatigue can do that. But where my body is tired, my mind is not. It's free.

It's free because I'm both standing true to my convictions, and I'm being more (almost radically) honest about who I am and what I'm going through. 

I spent so much of my life crushing under uncertainty. Under trying to figure out not just who I am, how I belong, but how I'll express what I'm experiencing.

The floodgates have been opened. 

Cause I'm being more honest about what who I am, where I'm at, and what I'm experiencing. 

Somedays. It's overwhelming in a different way.

My iphone's notepad has over 500 small entries. Some have been taken and finished. But so many more. The majority. They go unfinished. Ideas either too fleeting, too scattered, or too scary to share. 

That's how so much of life for me is. Starts without completion.

I'm working on the surety, I'm working on my audience, how to share things. And that will come with time. But I'm finding so much more confidence, faith, and hope to share who I am, and what that means. That ain't nothing. It can sustain a lot of writing, focus, and energy. 

For the longest time I've been obsessed with writing something that matters. Something that makes a difference in someone else's life. That I could be inherently inspiring. That I have a call or a purpose to what I've been trying to do here. 

I don't know if there is anymore. 

I'm writing more and more for me. And it's not therapy. It's coalescing ideas that I feel compelled to share. Right, wrong, or indifferent this is me. 

For so long I've been constantly instructed on the potential I have. The intelligence I have. And what it's to be used for. That I'm meant for something larger. If you think that hasn't effected that need to make my writing, my existence count, you're crazy.

What I've found in adulthood is that my brain wasn't the same. That I was missing pieces of the puzzle to how I could function. I've written about adult diagnosed ADHD and how that has opened a lot of how I am exploring my thoughts, behavior, and history. It's changing so much. I just hope that I can improve who I am, be better knowing it. I've got trauma, my mood requires help. But therapy, some medication, a lot of work. I think it will pay off. 

Second, I'm embracing who I am when it comes to my sexuality, my attraction. Facing it doesn't mean I have to change who I am, I can just live who I am more wholly. I can be a better husband, father, friend because I know who I am. 

I hope it shows. I have a couple things I'm working on. I'm focusing on putting in the effort to write. It's becoming much more prolific. It has purpose but it's less lofty. I write now because I don't yet know how to eloquent place some thoughts on paper. My prose needs work. I know I can write to help people see me better. I have to put a lot of work in now, so that the writing I present can be more coherent and focused than I used to be. 

I've almost doubled the total views on this blog in the last three months. I'm not done. The floodgates, they've been opened. I need to have the courage to catch the current. Let it take me where I need to be. I'm not weighted down anymore. 

For a long time that weight was constricting me from expressing the close held deeply honest thoughts and feelings I've had. That's changing. I know at times it has been alienating. I can't dismiss that. I can't ignore how the outcomes and relationships in my life were different by leaving things unsaid. 

I can't be silent anymore.

I can't be afraid anymore. 

I don't feel like I'm screaming into the void anymore. I know people are listening. I have my wife, the best woman, the best person, the best friend I could hope to know. And she knows me better now. I have my children who I hope see the aspirational in me as their father. And I have a couple really close friends that buoy me up when I need it. 

They couldn't have done that if I had remained silent screaming at the void, instead of being vulnerable and whispering, sobbing to those who care about me. 

It's layers, it's an onion. Some of this can be public. Some of this can be shared. By expressing this better I'm changing the game, the rules, and I know I'm not crushing my soul by leaving it alone anymore.