Grit

          I worry how easily I put my life into text, onto this webpage. Shouldn't the experiences of life be so wayward, varied, complex, that they elude articulation?
          At graduation last Sunday, the speaker cautioned the newly fledged audience to never let virtual reality take the place of actual reality. Don't succumb to Facebook and Myspace, he warned, forgetting about face to face interaction with other people. There's a certain hollowness to people who spend their lives (and I say this as someone walking dangerously close to that line) living via wires, constructing personalities out of profiles, networking by hyperlink.
          This morning, as I was walking across an empty campus, I was thinking about the second Harry Potter book, the Chamber of Secrets. I don't think anyone is unfamiliar with the novel, but in it, there's a girl who finds a diary, and begins pouring her heart out into it. Literally - the diary contains a piece of soul (a bad soul, the villain of the story), and as she writes more and more, exposes more of her self to the book, the spirit inhabiting the pages feeds off it, grows stronger as she becomes more shell-like.
          Sometimes I worry that that's what I'm doing. You know, minus the evil wizard/magical diary aspect.
          And I don't know if I have the inner richness, or fortitude, or whatever, to withstand being a writer. There's something draining about it - people read what you've written, make it a part of themselves, and you, the writer, is left peeled and dry. Do I have imagination (or despair, or horror, or divine revelation) enough to do this? Maybe I'm just kidding myself.
          Even this exploration of my own thoughts is something I feel compelled to write about, to share. Am I looking for answers? Validation? I don't know.
          But this summer and next term, I'm putting together a portfolio of creative writing. Everything I've written up to this point feels ... sugary. Safe. Possibly this is because I'm sugary. But there's some salt and bitter there, too - so I'll try to tap into that. Not writing gritty stories for the sake of writing gritty stories (contrived is worse than sugary), but writing what's authentic. We'll see how it goes.