The Rantings of a Funked Up Mind

Chapter One - The Age Old Argument

This chapter is dedicated to @HecDaevis because thanks to you, and the response Wyatt received when he asked "How do I write?" in Fleeting Love, I finally had the guts to just sit down and write.  xo __________________________________________________________________________

It was almost two in the morning as I sat at my desk with shaky hands. Was I really going to do this? Was I really going to put myself out there for people to read about? I had been up late, reading once again, when the idea struck. I couldn't get enough of the on-line book site and the thousands of stories it offered up. It had been almost two years since I found the site and I managed to read almost a book a day during that time.

As a matter of fact, I had another 500 books waiting for me in my library, beckoning me to fall into their pages and get lost. Yet, here I was, staring at the cursor as it blinked on the computer screen taunting me as I , tried to decide whether I wanted to share my deepest, darkest thoughts with hundreds or even thousands of people I didn't know.

What drove me to do this? I wasn't sure. No, that was a lie. I did know. It had been a conversation with a girlfriend last week. Lisa was like my sister and we had been through so much together. We met while on maternity leave with our babies and spent many a day entertaining them at the park before I moved away. Now, our visits were few and far between. But when we did get together, it was like no time had passed. We would rush to catch up on everything we had missed in each others lives, including all the antics of her ex and my in-laws.

But this last meeting was different. She had admitted to me that she had thought about suicide a lot in the past year. I was the only one she had told because she knew my story and the struggles that I had growing up.

Since we had tea last week, the conversation had been gnawing at me, picking away at old scabs I thought were long since healed. I found myself unknowingly going over my own situations and old memories every day since then. I was analyzing everything, from every angle, trying to figure out why I made the choices I did. And at the end of it all, I was truly baffled.

So here I sat, preparing myself to vomit my life into the written word for others to read and judge. What was my motivation? Answers and understanding. Maybe by reading what I wrote, someone would give me a response that would make things make sense - make my life make sense. Because as of right now, it surely didn't, not to me.

As I began to type, I felt the panic rise in my chest. I was terrified that no one would read it, essentially making me irrelevant. I was terrified of someone would read it and criticize it. Because after all, this wasn't a story I was going to write, but my life. How could I deal with someone bashing my life? Most of all, I was terrified that once it was all said and done, I would end up with more questions than answers. With that last fleeting thought I began to type....

Well, uh hi there. This is Nina and I am in search of some answers about myself. So, I figured what better way to pick myself apart than to air all my dirty laundry on a public site for everyone to see, right?

In all honesty, I don't know where this will go or how it will play out. What I am hoping, maybe, is that by writing my story, or at least the parts of it that I think played a part in determining the outcome of my life, things will finally make sense to me. And if they still don't, well then maybe you can help.

I will ask questions of you and I am hoping that you will give me answers, whether it be through your comments or private messages. I think the key to me understanding myself may lay in others experiences. Perhaps, someone will be able to relate to what I am saying and help me verbalize this disconnect I feel. Because, I have to tell you, I have tried and I have failed miserably. I will leave you with this for today:

Some of my earliest memories are ones that evoke the most emotion. They say that a young child's brain stores the events that have the most impact on them; good or bad. I know this to be true and yet, I still can't help but ask...is it these memories that have shaped me into the person I am today, writing this, looking for answers or was I always going to end up this way?

I have spent the better part of my life trying to figure that out. Trying to determine if I am simply wired differently than everyone else or if the sum of my early memories simply changed who I would have otherwise been. I have combed through my memories a thousand times trying to determine which one it may have been that finally broke me. Because make no mistake, I am most certainly broken.....and if you are still reading, you want to know why too. Thank you so much for taking the tine to read this and I look forward to your comments! xo Bells

Well, I had done it. I had posted an entry. Now, all I had to do was sit and wait to see if anyone would read it and if they did read it, would they connect to it and reply as I had hoped.

I couldn't believe how long I had been writing just this little blurb. It was almost four a.m. and I had to get up in three hours with the kids. This might prove to be more of a struggle than I thought. I guess I would be putting my reading on hold for a while...

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Hello my lovelies, Isabella here! This story will be written in first person and is based loosely on the life and struggles of someone I am very close to. So, please consider getting into the spirit of the story and replying to my questions/prompts honestly with your own insights either in the comments section or to my inbox. Let me (Bella) know what you think of what has been written so far and let Nina (the character, and I suppose my alter ego) know what you think of her. Updates will likely be on the shorter side and often but the subject will depend on that of the responses. Let's see where we can take us....xoxo