When the Words Keep Arriving

It's a plague I've suffered heavily from before. Beginning sometime in late 2012, words and phrases began to come to me at all times of day and night. I was reading heavily at the time and writing often, but the words came from everywhere. They were wonderful, but an annoyance. I needed a notebook nearby at all times. I could think clearly, but the words still interrupted when they weren't welcome. It had begun slowly, happening for the first time in April 2012, during an especially busy time. Mostly the words arrived in the daytime, but gradually stretched into the evenings. I collected them as best I could, sentences of prose or a few poetic words, phrases, descriptions, ideas, characters and settings, but so many slipped away.

It intensified last winter and spring. Especially when I faded into sleep. I kept a notebook next to my bed and most nights, fought off the sleep to write down the words that kept arriving. Some nights I would promise that I would memorize the words and write them in the morning. Most nights this worked. I would dream about the words in the meantime. Then, sometime last summer, the words stopped coming. Few have since. Until last night. Or perhaps this morning. It was nearly 2 a.m. and the deep exhaustion was there. The sleep wasn't though. The words couldn't stop. In the dark, I scribbled down everything I could. Reading these words now, I had written in my half-conscious state, "It's not that sleep won't come, it's that the words won't let it. They fight and push and weave their way into every thought of my mind."

Before the flood of words arrived, I had been writing about something else in the same notebook. I was reflecting on how leading a student organization these past four years has led me to think about the journey I'm taking. How happy it's made me. I thought about the future for the organization, writing to those who will someday undertake the same responsibility, "It's my hope that you'll know the greater impact of what you're involved in, and know that it's worth every minute you give." This caused me to realize that everything in our lives are worth every minute we give. I might want sleep, but I want the words too. I want to be present in everything I can. I want to choose my life and grow to understand if I don't know what will come along with it.

I remembered this evening, after a long day, of words a friend once sang,  "I will leave a light on for you, my friend. I will hold a place for you on this road that never ends." This friend has since passed away. As I join many others in the entry into the world outside of academia, I want to remember these words. I want to know that the road going forward is a very good one.