Writing and Imperfection

For the first decade of life, I had headaches. Daily.  Every day.  Occasionally they were mild, but often severe.  I saw various doctors.  Suffered through multiple scans.  At the end of the workup, the answers were no more forthcoming than the day we began.  There was never a clear antidote.  Never a divine potion.
  
Then something magical happened.  Exasperated, my parents took me to a biofeedback specialist who taught self meditation. And my life was transformed.

I won't say that my headaches went away completely.  They didn't.  But practicing regular meditation instilled in me a confidence and a calm that revolutionized my life.  At the age of ten, I learned to manage stress, physical discomfort, and visualize the place I wanted to inhabit in the world.  It helped center me.

Although the habit of daily meditation has fallen off over the years, I still return from time to time.  Whether physical illness or mental, there is a safe harbor in times of need.  There are few practices that have been so impactful on my life. 

The last year, for many reasons, has been hard. I have found myself pulled in too many directions.  And my centeredness has skewed.  My balance faltered.

I have been thinking a lot about this balance.  As a child, it was built on meditation and thoughtfulness.  As an adult, I now realize what has been missing in the last year.

Writing.

My daily routine of putting thoughts into words had recently become too overwhelming.  My days were so disjointed that I had neither the emotional energy nor the physical time to place fingers to keyboard.

Because writing, as life, is excruciating.  Filled with psychic pitfalls, it is awkward at best and messy often.  The words come out disjointed and backwards, and rarely reflect the intangible emotion that circulates amongst the fussy neurons in my brain.

I am rarely satisfied with a piece, even after all the edits have been made.  Imperfection pervades my writing, my soul.

Yet somehow this imperfection provides that thing.  That thing which is missing most.