The Right Words

Do you ever feel you are on the perpetual search for the right words? Sometimes that search can be incredibly jarring. Then a whole set of other thoughts come in and that pushes the search even further away. 

I’ve really tried to keep up my writing this semester and though I am really not doing a good job of meeting that 1000 words a day limit that I set myself (some days it’s more like 350-750) I’m trying to write at least a little everyday. I spent almost all of this weekend looking for the right words for this thing I have to write and sadly I didn’t find them. It was vaguely reminiscent of when I hit a writers block in my dissertation process and nothing came out because I had this notion that whatever needed to come out had to be perfect. So I started blaming a bunch of things, to find out why I couldn’t write this thing: I’m tired, I’m getting over a cold, I haven’t had a real conversation with friends in months, something is uncomfortable, all of the whys instead of just owning what is, which would be the smarter way to be honest. Just own that you didn’t write the thing on those particular days and move on.

  So I got up this morning and got ready for work and do you ever have those conversations with a friend in your head? Most of my friends live far away so I rarely get to have a real conversation with them. Sometimes there’s a quick phone call, sometimes a text or a Twitter message, sometimes an email but we are all busy and some have families so it’s hard to find time. But as I get older I’m realizing how much this all sucks. One of my former students said to me once “professor, all that matters in life is having friends you can talk to” and I’m realizing now how right she was in this insight. So sometimes I find myself having conversations with those friends who are far away in my head. Today as I walked to the subway I had one of those conversations with a friend and all the right words came. I could imagine her laughing at some parts and giving me that adorable smirk at other times. And I really wish I had said those words out loud or did voice to text because they were the perfect words, the right words, and I don’t know if I will remember them when we talk next time.

Because finding the right words is difficult and sometimes you say the wrong words or sometimes you say nothing when you should have. I guess the thread here is that words matter and it’s nice to hear words and sometimes you need to reflect long and hard to find the right ones.