Good morning, all.

I'm sitting here at my computer, having just made my first blog entry.  I've been writing for as long as I can remember, especially when I am faced with something painful or difficult - or even sometimes when I am so full of joy I cannot find my voice to express myself.

I have found over the years that for me, writing has been such a salve, holding so much power to release me from the things I dare not speak.  As a teen, I would write poetry (usually fairly dark - I wasn't a happy teen at all).  From about age 15 until my early 30s,  I didn't write at all.  I continued to stuff and stuff and get sicker and sicker. 

Once coming into recovery, especially once I began my 4th step, I became reacquainted with the healing beauty of the written word.  I don't journal necessarily.  But when I need to "process", I write.  Somehow after I write, I find myself able to express, both vocally and emotionally, what it is that I could not previously. 

Quite often I have found I surprise myself with what ends up being on the sheet of paper in front of me.  Maybe something I knew, but had forgotten.  Maybe something I'd never seen before.

I'm not quite sure why I felt the need to share this today, except that writing has been a very powerful tool for me, in recovery especially.  I'm not saying it works that way for everyone.  But I don't know how I would have ever been able to get out of the bog I had lived in for so long without this tool of expression.

Just rambling I guess, today.

Karen