The why …

I have heard it repeatedly … “Let your why be bigger than your how”. I never gave this saying much thought, because to me it has always been obvious. I teach. I’ve been teaching for thirteen years. Every day I am confronted with my why. Every day I can, in some way or another, see and feel the difference I make and/or the impact I have on young minds and lives, however minuscule it might be. Of course, there are also days I wonder why the hell I stick around, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I am making the ever-elusive difference everyone so aspiringly dream about.

It is only now that I have decided, after years of silent contemplation, that I want to write that the “why” has come making its ghostly rounds at my door as well. Why do I want to write? Will it even mean anything? To anyone? Who will read it? Does it matter who reads it? It was with these hounding questions that I realised that I have become completely tangled up in the “why” and the only way to untangle it was … to write about it.

I mean, there are of course the obvious, but also true reasons. I want to write, because I have a creative itch that I am dying to scratch, there are words that I long to use that my Grade 8s and some of my Grade 11s will have no appreciation for, I have thoughts and ideas that I think are worth penning down. But in the haunting “why” I eventually had to get very real with myself. The truest reason why I want to write is because I have lately had a resurfacing of emotions and demons that I do not know how to deal with, other than to write them out. So, I guess it is fair then to say that my want to write is actually a need to write.

See, I have never been a talker. I am strongly introverted, and I have always, instead of talking about my emotions, absorbed them within myself and internalised them. I know, it sounds healthy right! I always reasoned (and a lot of times I still do) that they are my emotions and that I will work them out. I have a suspicion that I have been managing anxiety attacks like a boss, but I’m not sure …because I don’t talk about it. Besides, my dad’s answer to anything and everything askew while I was growing up was that “you’re just a little unfit” and as a result my mind really derails if I go too long without physical exercise, but that is a whole new topic for another day!

Let me bring it home. I have decided to write, because I need to get some of my crazy thoughts and feelings out. In the words of Anna Nalick’s beautiful song Just Breathe …” if I get it all out on paper it’s no longer inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to”.

With this I conclude my first ever blog entry to my very imaginative audience. Its okay if no one reads it. Its okay if it makes no difference. It’s okay because it’s out.