Write it all down, let it all out

Writing things down really is therapeutic. It's cathartic. 

I write letters. 

I write hate letters, I write whining letters, I write love letters and friendship letters. I write letters where I rage, I write letters where I laugh, I write letters where I cry. 

I write them to myself, to my friends and family, to people I've never even met.

No one ever sees them of course but, like this blog, just the act of writing it all down, or typing it out, helps me get it out of my head, my version of Dumbeldore's pensive I suppose. Of course it doesn't quite work as well as Dumbeldore's pensive (nothing ever does in the muggle world) and sometimes I write letter after letter, a whole series of them, spanning weeks, months or even years, tucked away all just for one person. 

Sometimes it helps to just say what I want to say, what I know I can't, or shouldn't, say out loud in real life, to have a record of it somewhere outside of my head that, even though it's highly unlikely the person to whom it pertains will ever find out, still exists. 

Sometimes it does the exact opposite of help, that it's seemingly so easy for me to say what I want to say on paper, in a letter, just makes it that much worse when I can't say it in real life. 

Sometimes I pour my hopes and dreams through ink (or lead, I am a fan of the pencil) on to paper, making them something real, something concrete, and it's awful when those hopes and dreams come to nothing or crash and burn at my feet. 

Sometimes, I think I'll look back at these letters, all the highs and lows, and see how much has changed and say that I need not have worried so much, all turned out well.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll share the letters with their owners, the people I wrote them to. To show them how they made me happy or made me sad or proud or angry.