I’ve spent a ton of time in my car lately – a trip from Bismarck, ND, to the Quad Cities, IA/IL, to visit family; a trip from Bismarck to the Quad Cities for an interview; move from Bismarck to the Quad Cities; a trip from the Quad Cities to Minneapolis for just three hours to get stuff that didn’t fit in the truck; trips from one end of the Quad Cities to another for family dinners and babysitters and job trainings and as many lunches as I can possibly fit in at Noodles and Co. – and I have my iPod playing almost constantly. With probably one hundred hours spent in the car in the last month and a half, and only 1250 songs on my MP3 player, that leaves me open to a lot of repetition, especially on shuffle (and leaves me open to a lot of musings about why my iPod loves Gym Class Heroes’ “Cookie Jar” song so much, but that’s not really the point of this blog post).
In addition to crappy-yet-fun music, Anna Nalick’s “Breathe (2 AM)” has popped up, and one line in particular has stuck with me:
If I get it all down on paper, it’s no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to.
I realized that’s true when I write too. I can be worrying about something, or obsessing about it, and then I write a story about it and it no longer bothers me at all. However, my mind comes up with such weird stuff that I’m pretty sure you’re not going to be able to tell what’s true when you read my stories, and what’s fiction serving merely as a vessel to get those thoughts out. At least, I’m counting on it. :)
So what about you? Does writing serve any mental stability purpose for you too?