Word Vomit

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, feeling my lungs constricting, the bed sheets wrapping around my body, the darkness overwhelming me. I’m paralyzed and I’m not sure if it’s my body still waking up or just the fear.

It’s not ghosts, monsters or demons that scare me. It’s these little whispers in head that make me wonder if I’m about to follow the yellow brick road straight to crazy land. These insecurities that I manage to suffocate during the day.

I wonder if I’m good enough. If I’ll ever amount to something. If this career I chose isn't just a suicide mission. I chose a path that millions of people take and only a few special persons succeed. So what made me think I could make it? The little awkward girl from Malta whose dreams are bigger than the island she lives on. Is it a cruel joke from Mother Nature? To make us humans want more than we can ever achieve?

Why can I not be happy with finding a mediocre job that earns enough money to afford a roof over my head? Instead of trying to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and risk ending up on the road, under newspapers, begging for money to be able to buy cheap carton box wine to forget what we did to ourselves. Are we naturally self-destructive? Can we base our lives on the exceptions? Because most of those that succeed are exceptions. There were several other people who were as good but just weren't lucky enough. And for a girl who’s luck can’t even get her a bus on time, well I’m in big trouble.

So I hope. I hope that by working hard and being relatively good, positive karma will reach me back. And let me tell you if karma is a bitch, then hope is karma’s mother. And I am screwed.

Words

All my life I have surrounded myself with words. Words I read in books, words I hear from films and shows. Words I write. I was always fascinated by the power of words. How a passage from a book, a few words from a writer, a couple of lines from a movie can make you feel so much when it isn't even directed to you. I know the power of words. I know what hateful words can do to a person and I know what a few nice words can do as well.

One of the reasons I love writing is that you can delete and rewrite whatever you want. You can think things through. You can place words in a way that they mean exactly what you want them to mean.

It’s quite different than speaking, especially for a professional blurter like me. I tend to say words that sound quite well in my head and sound horrible when spoken out loud. It could be a cowardly thing to do but I prefer writing. I don’t do well with phone calls or face to face talking especially with strangers.

I’m awkward. I have accepted that fact a long time ago and I've dealt with it. But that doesn't mean that when I blurt something out, that should have stayed hidden in the folds of my brain, I don’t cringe. Not only do I cringe but I keep thinking about those few stupidly spoken words. I wonder what effect they had on the person. I wonder what others think of me because of those words. And vice-versa when someone says something, I analyse it, I dissect it and investigate all the possibilities of its meaning

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I realise that most people don’t mean half the things they say. Or they do and that’s just another lie society fed us. But true or not, I do ponder on words. I love words. I love how they sound. I love the fact that with a few well chosen words, you can make a sentence musical. I like the fact that you can express most things with words. I love learning new words, hearing new phrases, the many possibilities.

That is also why, when words fail, I pretty much retreat in my shell. Because there are moments where words are useless. What do you tell a person who has lost a loved one? What do you tell someone who just had their dreams crushed? What do you tell a couple who are going through a break up?

I feel useless and powerless and well no one likes to feel that way do they? When I’m at a loss for words, I feel like I've disappointed people, like I've disappointed myself. Because words mean so much to me and I expect to be able to say a few nice words. I expect it from myself even though maybe no one else does.

Because when I’m writing, I feel like my awkwardness disappears. It’s the only place I feel at ease. It’s my safe haven. And if I don’t have that, I have nothing.