It's better to be depressed for something than for nothing.

"Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it"- Sylvia Plath

I feel that I've spent a good portion of my life avoiding writing.  You see, I come from a family of writers- my dad's father has made his living writing novels and columns and the like, my dad himself was a wonderful storyteller, and my brother recently published a novel.  I've always known I have it in me.  However, writing is a pursuit I have resisted throwing myself into, despite my awareness of the fact that if I were to win the lotto, I would spend the rest of my life traveling and writing.

So, if I hold writing as the ultimate standard for a fulfilled life, and if I have it in my blood, what has stopped me? Why do I only write a poem or two every few months? Why have I never really tried to publish anything? Why do I avoid creative prose like the plague?

Because I'm scared to death to do it.

I want you, dear reader, to know that the sentence I've just uttered is a grossly confessional one, probably more suited to a shrink's office than to our magazine's blog.  But there you have it, the underlying truth of my life.  What am I scared of? Many things, not the least of which is starvation.  To me, stability has been an attractive life feature, and that is rarely a quality attributed to writers. 

One of my other big fears is depression.  Writing has always seemed to me a gloomy occupation (and I use that word to mean both profession and something that occupies one's time).  The single month in which I wrote more creative prose than I ever have before or since was also one of the most depressed months of my life.  I had just finished writing my first grad school paper and the oversized couch in my apartment was still littered with Sylvia Plath. As if the entire months' long process of writing that paper had been a sort of literary foreplay, my pent-up, frustrated creativity came flowing out of me over the course of that winter break, aided by a snowy Misery-esc setting, a dark living room, and many frequently lit candles.

I've never been more messed up or more satisfied in my life. 

And, so I realized something today: I'm not a stable person.  I am a person who was inclined to write her first grad school paper on Sylvia Plath and feels a real connection to that supremely fucked up woman's poetry.  I am a gloomy person who is moody and frequently irritated and dissatisfied.  If the purpose of not dedicating my life to writing was to avoid pain, to avoid depression, to pursue stability, it's not working.  What am I getting out of not writing?  

As more and more people around me are incorporating writing into their lives, not shying from it or masking it in other pursuits, I find myself wondering why, of all the things I force myself to do on a daily basis, of all the tasks that are miserable to me, I haven't really found time for writing in my daily life.

I could be amazing. I could be shit. If I don't find a way to motivate myself to really try, I'll never know.  It's a lot of pressure, thinking this way.  But at this point, I'm tired of avoiding the pressure, and I'm tired of not focusing my life on the things that actually matter to me. 

Maybe I gave the orderly life a shot. Maybe it's not worth it. Maybe it's time to do everything I'm scared of. Maybe I'll start with writing.