Writing: My Love Language

My sisters and I have a running joke that the way I love and feel loved falls outside the normal 5 categories of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, gift-giving, and service: my primary love language is when people read what I write!

It’s kind of a joke, but also not really. As someone who struggles and stresses over meaningful social interactions, it’s hard to communicate my emotions that way. The words mush together in my head, I say them out of order, I can’t hold eye-contact, I get interrupted, I worry no one is listening, I exaggerate to get a reaction…

Let’s just say my efforts to verbally articulate my most meaningful thoughts and desires are an exercise in futility. It sometimes comes across with very close friends, but even then, it’s never exactly how I want it. This is especially frustrating when I realize that my actual love language is words of affirmation, and yet I just can’t seem to love people in the way I find most meaningful.

That is, unless I have to give them a card. Or write them a letter. Or a short story. Or a poem. And then like magic, the words in my heart make sense. My hands may ache from writing, but at least I can say what I need to say and love the way I feel most loved. This extends from how I love others to how I figure out myself, and so I write books and poetry and blog posts and Instagram captions and each one offers a small glimpse into my soul. A little window into what I truly want to say and how I actually feel. When I’m speaking with people in person, I feel an expectation to please and entertain. But on paper, I can just be myself.

Writing is the purest form of honesty that I know.

That may be a surprising thought, as writing is… let’s just say, notoriously rigid and structured. You have to understand grammar and organize your ideas and choose strong words, and for many people, that process is about as fake and manufactured as it gets. How many times have you just inflated an essay with meaningless ramble to hit the word count, or fought for an idea or story you didn’t actually believe just to accomplish an assignment? In a sense, writing is the art and science of making stuff up. Storytelling is all an elaborate lie.

To then claim it as honesty is a paradox I still don’t understand. And yet, I know it to be true.

The “me” in my head is nothing more than a swirl of disconnected thoughts. Thoughts that flip and change every moment as I make the decisions that dictate who I am. Thoughts are often the birthplace of sin, anxiety, and doubt… all things that I experience, and yet they don’t define me. When I write, I can work through those thoughts: either literally through poetry and journaling, or more abstractly through themes in a story. But by pinning them down on the page, I see them for what they really are, and by bringing the mental haze into the light, I can change the lies into truth through my words.

I don’t see that as a deception or as painting myself differently from reality. I see it as the truest form of expression I can give. And I know I’m not alone in that.

For that reason, I feel something intensely personal when someone shares their own writing with me. Whether it’s a book manuscript, a scribbled poem, a rambling letter, or musings in the notes of their phone, I feel honored and delighted. I see inside people’s writing little pieces of themselves, an honest cry to be known and understood. Maybe I’m generalizing or romanticizing too much based on my own intense feelings towards writing, but regardless, there is something beautiful and personal in this exchange of art. Word choice, focus, formatting, theme… it all paints a better picture of someone’s mind. There is trust and vulnerability involved when sharing art of any kind, but especially with writing, I always feel I see a person more clearly after I read it.

There is much more to say on writing, and many people smarter than I have probably said it. But whether or not you feel this way about writing in particular, I ask that you stop and think when someone shares something with you. It may be visual art, a photograph, a story, a memory, a struggle, a book, a song, or even just their time. Whatever it is, that person has valued you enough to share something they love with you. A little piece of herself. A part of what makes him who he is. We pour our hearts into what we love, and those things shape us in return. These opportunities to know someone deeper should not be taken lightly, and hopefully, you will find ways to share your own love in that process.

Namárië friends! Until next time!