The Economy of Words

There was a time when a blank virtual sheet of paper would send chills of anticipation down my spine, and I'd imagine all of the wonderfully witty words I'd apply to it.

It may have been because I knew I had an audience, and I knew most of who that audience was. That was both liberating and scary as hell, as writing has a way of revealing your inner self. I wrote porn. I wrote of my childhood abuse. I wrote of cabbages and kings, and all of those things that made me scratch my head and laugh out loud.

Now, I'm not so free with my words. Instead, I save most of them for work, detailing the inner workings of machines and mechanisms, and endeavoring to distill their operation to small, simple steps. I'm quieter, too...as if I know I used too many too early on...and now I need to economize.

Even so, I feel a need to write this down today: It's my adoption day. As an adoptee, I have celebrated this day with my adoptive parents all of my life...until this year. Both of them are now gone, and so it feels like a forgotten birthday. It's not the end of the world, certainly; but I don't have enough pockets to place my feelings. Instead, they're left out and bare. All I can hope is the discomfort fades quickly, but one can never tell. It can go south in a moment or pass by without a how-do-you-do.

Its unpredictability should be familiar by now, but it continues to surprise me by how unprepared I seem to be for it. And today, my economy with words unnerves me.