Mechanisms.

You can always tell when I'm upset, as I write a lot more, whether it be notes, lists or blog posts like this one, my writing definitely increases in volume when I'm sad, down or under the weather. Maybe that's ironic: I love writing, it's my passion, and yet i seem to excel in it's field only when my life is falling apart around my ankles. So why? Why does it take a few tears to get real? Why when I feel absolutely alone or totally worn down does my writing skill flourish? Surely in my dark times, it really doesn't matter if I can write fluently or eloquently, just at all. It's more of a way to get the thoughts out of my head and allow me to relax than it is for public reading or any kind of display. Perhaps there's a certain peace I get from writing when I'm upset. Maybe that's not practical or good for me, but some of the best pieces of writing I've ever conjured up has been due to too many tears or vodkas, or sometimes both. There's part of me wonders whether I can't write happy things. It's a lot harder to write about happy things. The light is flourescent if you mess with it too much, while the dark can get pitch black and nobody questions it's truth. The positives seem overexaggerated sometimes in my eyes, but the negatives, the old cliché, everyone believes. It's true. A news headline about something terrible and it never passes through your mind as to whether it's fact or fiction, yet a positive story about someone changing their life for the better makes people cynically question the realism of it. That's how I see my writing sometimes. The dark, somewhat depressing side of my writing is where my passions are hidden. If you read my sadness, you get to know the real me. The happy posts are half-hearted, quickly written between an outfit change, a touch of make up, or a taxi arriving at 9.30. The happy times don't get documented much, for two reasons. Firstly, because I tend to find myself preoccupied with said happiness, so writing about it takes a back seat, and secondly, I'm not really sure I know how to write about happiness. That is the elephant in the room I've finally admitted. I've written so much about people's downfalls, low times and heartbreaks I really don't know where to start with the love, laughter and happiness. It's difficult. It's simpler and yet, harder to convey in words. It's a smile at a bus stop, a laugh while staring at your iPhone, someone holding your hand, a compliment you know is actually meant from the heart. The mundane, the real, the normality of every day is difficult, and yet it shouldn't be. Not every day is a car crash, a death, an assault, mentally or physically. Not every day is bankruptcy, breakdown or fall out. Every day is going to work whether you like it or not. Paying bills because that's what you have to do to get by. It's reluctance and disdain and yet it's so many other things. It's routine. It's coping mechanisms all united. It's patience and kindness and calm and friendliness. It's tolerance. It's arguing with someone you love. It's smiling at someone you don't like. It's buying an overpriced coffee so you can take a photo of it for Instagram. It's the Monday mornings as well as the Friday evenings. It's the 7am starts, the baby crying in the middle of the night, the snuffly noses and sore throats, the rain, sleet, snow and sun. It's the going for lunch vs skipping lunch. It's having too much time and no time at all and clock watching and seconds flying by all at once. It's every day that matters. Pieced together. Today is only significant because of there being no tomorrow, or no yesterday. Writing about today is the easy bit. Writing the tomorrow is hard.