Aetherias Moon

by Aetherias Moon

I recently had a family member pass away, and I didn’t know how to deal with it emotionally. I struggle with dissociation (a feeling where you become disconnected from yourself and reality), and I found myself unable to process what was going on. I went on with my day almost like nothing was wrong except unease lurked in the background like a monster creeping after me. But I couldn’t remember why I felt that way. I couldn’t understand it.

Even at the funeral, I couldn’t cry, I could barely feel. I stared at the stained glass windows and felt trapped and frightened. I went home and felt drained. I still didn’t understand a thing. 

And then I wrote. I began to unravel all the messy emotions inside of me. A character mirroring my feelings yet not me, not quite my story, appeared on the page. Tears flowed freely and all at once, I understood my grief. Not just for the one who passed recently, but for those I had lost in the past as well. Writing helped me properly mourn the people who I had lost.

Writing is a powerful tool. It’s why therapists (and notebook lovers like me) will praise journals. Sometimes you just need to vomit words onto a page, like in a journal. Or maybe you need to weave words together into a carefully crafted piece of art, like a story. Both are valid, both are important.

I look back at old pieces of writing and have a moment of being like “oh that was what that story was about,” because whether we like it or not, we are fueled by our feelings. Sometimes I go into a piece intending to work through an emotion, and other times it happens unconsciously. Often, even when I go into it with a plan, I come out of it with something different. Emotions are the lens that we write through. 

Making art is cathartic. It’s how we cope, how we communicate things bigger than words even if we use words to communicate them. 

Writing to process emotions is ultimately about writing for yourself. Sometimes writers write intending to share with others, but some art is made for the author first. It doesn’t mean that the art can’t be shared with others, but it means that you let the story talk to you alone for a while. It is a personal dialogue, a private conversation, a whisper that allows you to come to terms with something. Maybe you don’t come to terms with anything. Maybe you open the wound deeper, so you can begin to heal later. Whatever part of the journey you are on, let your story emanate from those emotions. The words will be a salve for the ache in your heart. Explore the feeling, dance with it, cry in its arms, until something is created that makes sense to you in a way beyond those feelings or individual words. Art is born, catharsis is reached.

It can be hard to share art that is so deeply personal, but I find that stories transform my emotions into something new so that the original feeling, reflected through the story, comes out a different color. When you share art so packed with emotion, you can only hope that the reader is able to gain some of the same catharsis you achieved when you wrote it. To allow your reader into that feeling and have them understand themselves a little deeper for reading it. 

It can be a painful process but ultimately rewarding. I write poetry, but I rarely share it because it feels too deeply personal. I almost always write it when I am feeling overwhelmed and upset, so every word cuts deep. They feel too close to the emotion. 

But sometimes your emotion creates something beautiful that must be shared. 

A winter blossom dies on a spring breeze

The sky glimmers green while swaying reach

Spring flourishes while the petals weep

Natures contradiction tastes bittersweet

I hope you read my short story Stained Glass Heart