Message in a Bottle 17
I don’t think it's rare or unnatural to have a deep fascination for things that hurt us. Mentally at least. I don’t even think it's wrong, because when we move towards our pain, shake hands with it, and look it in the eyes, then and only then can we move on.
I think of little kids hunkered in the basement, paralyzed by the fear of storms, but then growing up to be storm-chasing adrenaline junkies.
Not making sense?
Stick with me.
I am fascinated, obsessed really, with endings, with goodbyes. And yet, even the simplest of them usually make me cry, send pangs through my heart, and twist my stomach in painful knots. I’m not even sure when it started. I think it’s always been there, I just didn’t have a name for it when I was younger.
Writing Every Shadow Lifted, I unconsciously (at first) entangled it in Kiara’s make up. I wrote it into her character from the very start.
It’s a struggle, a back and forth fight. Endings hurt me, but they’re also sacred. Or should be. And I want to know why. I want to know why they cut me so deep and I want to search out where my reverence for something so painful comes from. I want to dive deeper, explore possibilities. I want to develop the ability to move on.
If you’ve followed the social media “updates” you know starting book four has been a grind. There’s a lot of pressure in an ending, but there’s also release … I just have yet to find it. So far I’m all struggle. And not all of it is from pressure, but that same avoidance of the pain of ending and moving on. This story has been my constant companion for eight years.
But I have plans. So many plans.
The Kiara waiting to be written in book four doesn’t even know what's coming for her. But I look forward to exploring this concept, this letting go and saying goodbye. To the past. To childhood. To comfortable weaknesses. I want Kiara to come to this place of shaking hands with her pain, with her fear of pain. I want to see her come out on the other side of this wall.
Maybe I will too.
--Ellie
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