Welcome (Back) to The Traveling Mandolin

Hiking along the Meramec River

Depression, writing, and lassoing the world

Sometime in the past couple years, I stopped writing.

Sure, I'd write the occasional update, spew the occasional thought or bit of poetry, and even labor on and off for hours the occasional informational posts such as 40 Financial Tips that Have Nothing to Do with Coffee, Parts 1 and 2. 

But my will to write, even the desire to write, vanished somewhere along the way, and I've been depressed.

I thought I wasn't writing because I was depressed, but my therapist has suggested that one of the reasons I'm depressed is because I haven't been writing.

This is a sensible conclusion, given that I write as intuitively as I breathe. I'll be in the middle of a situation and already thinking about how to put words to my experience— even if I never plan to sit down and write about it. I dream about writing, and will often "rewrite" part of my dream, while I'm dreaming, to describe the scene better. It's a gift I have, a gift I've honed through countless ramblings over the years. It expresses myself better than I can when I'm speaking. It shows who I really am. 

I lasso the world with words, yes, but I also experience and mediate the world this way. I sharpen my memories, I weave stories about who I am, I make sense of the jumbled mess of reality through the medium that comes most naturally to me. Writing isn't just a hobby; it's a way of bearing reality. It's a way of creating meaning out of the senselessness. It's a way of knowing and understanding, and a way of letting go of knowledge and understanding. It's a point of connection. It's a way of being less alone. 

And, apparently, it's pretty crucial to my mental health.

So here I am, back on my blog. I'm going to blog like it's 2009 and I got nothing better to do. I'm going to blog because the world is fascinating, and because words are helpful, and because I need to. I'm going to be at peace with the new Facebook algorithm that makes it difficult to share my posts with people who want to read it, and I'm going to find ways to make the blog accessible to people who want to see the world through my eyes. But most of all, I'm going to write. 

Because it's important.

Because I have to.

Let's do this.

Love,

The Traveling Mandolin

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