Remembering

When I was a child, I would write stories, poems, and songs almost daily. In third grade, my classmates and I would sing whatever new song I had written the night before. Every week for show and tell, I’d read the class my latest book and hold it outward each time so they could see the illustrated pictures I drew up as well. I interviewed family members and sometimes strangers for my “newspaper.” My grandfather would sit with me when I was very young and help me write songs, compose lyrics, and add choruses. I’ve loved writing my entire life. I even wrote and read a poem in honor of my grandfather at his funeral when I was 15 years old.

My best friend saved poems of mine from when we were in middle school and gifted them to me a couple years ago. I still have our colorful binder filled with passed notes, scribbled doodles, and pages of my muses. I have old poems and songs that twelve-year-old me created, and it’s like she was tapping into this version of me now in some ways when I read these pages. Chills overcome me.

When I turned 16, some majorly big changes in my life stifled the creativity in me, and my writing ceased. For years into my adulthood, I had forgotten about my poetry. When I was 23, I saw an open mic night at a coffee shop in town and decided to go to it. The stories of crushing heartbreaks, newfound discoveries, painful griefs, and beautiful births all sounded from within those walls and into my heart, wailing out in quieted, sniffly sobs from my eyes. I was reminded.

I was reminded of the burning passion and empathetic love within me.
I was inspired.

Every time I sway away from my creative side, I find myself reminiscing on those days. Since then, I’ve attended many open mics, read my poetry, sung my own songs, and have even hosted an open mic here and there myself. I love, love, love being in that scene.

Yet.
I’m not there often enough.

Before you get all, “Mindset is everything. Give yourself grace,” on me...

This is simply observance.

Months pass in between these attendances and hostings. Weeks pass without writing. Days become withered with work and responsibility until I find myself seeking to escape any chance that I get. Escape into social media. Escape into planning. Escape into gigging. Escape. Escape. Escape. Numb. Numb. Numb.

Why do I feel so numb?

Maybe because I have forgotten.

I have forgotten how rotten I can feel when I don’t take the time to unwind and unravel myself onto the pages.

I forget how much deeper I can breathe when I choose a moment of ease rather than the latter.

So. I’m slowing down.

Taking a break from social media.

Choosing different things to fill me up.

Like resting and going to yoga.

Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy.

’Tis my favorite way to rest.

I’m still remembering, still returning.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough for now.

Thank you for reading.

Love,

Kala