"i write because it keeps me sane. because i find God in that place where my thoughts escape my finger tips and make contact with my keyboard."

"about 90 percent of the reason i write is for what it does on the inside of my life, and about 10 percent for what it does on paper. "
-shauna niequist

before i sit down to write. i usually have about a million different things racing every which way through the folds of my mind.
i usually set my stuff down, grab a cup of coffee, sit down, check the weather, check my email, etc.
well, I check my email, then I add events and meetings and workout schedules and work schedules to my calendar. and then i think about how busy i am. how little time i have. and i think about how tired i am. then i panic about how i will handle my new schedule in the fall. and how i am going to get good grades. and then i think about things like the pull and lacrosse and sailing team and how i will make all of those work. and will i have enough energy left to do all of them. especially working a 5 am shift? and all of that craziness makes me think about my grades again.
and my grades make me think about how badly i want to be a veterinarian. and then i think about why i'm here. and can i really justify spending this much money on school every semester? then i wonder if it's really worth it? and am i really where i'm supposed to be?
but then i remember how i was brought here. and that i had no part in ending up at this college. and i remember that saturday afternoon in the kitchen. i remember sitting down with my parents, and them telling me that Hope was where i had to go. it was cheapest with financial aid. and i had no choice. it was Hope or nothing. and i remember being so upset. with them, with myself, with God. and i remember being so crushed. so, so crushed. i was going to be stuck in holland forever.
but then i remember the past year. the overwhelming beauty, brokenness, and love i've experienced. and all the things i thought weren't possible, became so much more so. and dreams and hopes and stories whispered under breath were no longer fiction or wishful thinking, but reality. and i learned more about God and therefore, more about myself.
and the learning reminds me of the seemingly insurmountable walls i faced. the ones i thought i'd never get through. and the hardship, the brokenness reminds me of the immeasurable blessings.
but the blessings make me wonder if i'm still on the right path. and i walking in a way that pursues the narrow gates? and i panic and worry about my schedule and school and everything over again. and i wonder if i have any chance of making a difference in this world. any chance at all. or if i'm just a crazy, aimless, dreamer? am i waiting to change the world? why am i not changing the world now? and maybe with all these crazy thoughts, it's best i didn't.

and that's the craziness inside my head.

and that's why i write. because, understandably, if i didn't. i might lose it. i write because when i scribble things down and rearrange and organize and visually see the craziness, the insanity looks a little less scary. it looks a little less overwhelming. because when i write. i believe in the good. in the beauty. in the joy. when i write. some part of me empties onto the screen. words tumbling out faster than i can type them. and i rewrite entire paragraphs because i get so ahead of myself. like i've been saving up all these words. and they explode onto the screen in front of me. i write because it keeps me sane. because i find God in that place where my thoughts escape my finger tips and make contact with my keyboard. i find him there. and when i do, i feel like i am breathing for the first time.

"when i write, i believe that all the ideas might have a place, instead of just running themselves around and around in a circle. writing gives me a place to use all the flashes and thoughts and rabbit trails that rattle themselves around in my head making me crazy. writing is my best chance at happiness, and it is the riskiest thing i can do. but that's how life is. the riskiest things always yield the best, most beautiful things. what writing teaches me, over and over, is that God is waiting to be found in the darkest corners of our lives, the dead ends and bad neighborhoods we wake up in, and in the simplest, lightest, most singular and luminous moments."
-shanua niequist