but, ya know, it’s close.
Photo by Julia Joppien on Unsplash
It’s happening. It’s super duper happening! I’m self publishing a book!
I could not be more proud of this project.
Over three years ago now, I began writing LOTS of poetry that came from a place of pain and misunderstanding. I wrote so many poems. Oh mylanta. So many poems. Really, really bad poems.
Some of my dearest friends (bless their hearts) would get daily text messages and emails featuring poems written with ALL of the emotion, but without much thought. (Yes, I’m pretending like I don’t still do this to them.)
If they hadn’t been so kind and compassionate about my poetry back then, I don’t think this project could ever have come to be.
You see, because of them, eventually I was brave enough to bring those poems with me to therapy. My lovely, wonderful, thoughtful, brilliant therapist helped me understand them and read between the lines.
With her by my side, those poems helped me spelunk into the darkest corners of my soul. I learned so much – and maybe most importantly, I learned that I never want to stop learning.
Over the course of that first year, something happened that I didn’t understand. We’d return to the same place every week; we’d look around and explore. But I couldn’t figure out how to keep going. I’d come up against a vast wall that had no end in sight. I knew there was something on the other side but didn’t know how to get there. After weeks of the same conversations, I started to think maybe it was impossible.
But then, my therapist suggested I write about the wall. In earnest.
So I did.
I journaled and journaled some more. I wrote about the wall. And then I wrote about what was beyond the wall. I chipped away at those poems, sometimes cleaving them in two or crumbling them into dust. I wrote and rewrote sections of this story so many times that my editor probably still gets a headache just thinking about it.
Honestly, I don’t know if you’ll like this story. There are scary parts, there are things that will probably gross you out (says my Mom). There are parts that will be confusing. There are parts that won’t make sense. But they do for me. I’ll be forever grateful for the time I was able to focus on my mental health in this way.
This book, Before I Sleep: Poetry, Prose, and Peculiarity, is a piece of my heart, a catharsis, a snapshot of a moment in my life. I’m sharing it with you because we all have these moments. And for me, this is the height of my personal catharsis – putting this thing I love, love so much I could puke, out into the world.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.