Creativity is My Resistance to Despair

Staying afloat, 100 words at a time.

When I am in the thick of it and wanting to sink, I use my creativity as a life preserver now. I decided last week to go back to my 100 words a day, using each snippet of my life as a way to stay afloat. Below is what’s fallen out so far. I have been posting them in Notes near daily, but decided that I would compile them here in one piece once a week. I decided to do this through March 31, 2025, but who knows, maybe I’ll go beyond that, we shall see. Below is a blend of memory, dream, and thought. Next go round will dive into the senses. Enjoy!

Photo by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash

A Writer is Born

The no. 2 pencil feels heavy in my right hand, I keep rolling it between my thumb and pointer finger. The ridges fascinate my child mind. Constantly curious about how something becomes itself. How did someone discover that the soft lead would also be sturdy enough to write with?

I still question everything.

My mom taught me to write using tracing paper. The thinnest pieces overlay the thicker alphabet ridden paper. Sounding each letter out as I traced. I can still smell the lead. Feel the fragility of the almost tissue paper- just strong enough to hold my almost words.

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Things No One Tells You

You might feel relieved when your parents die. Sounds awful, but it’s true.

When my mom and dad died - I was relieved. I didn’t have to worry anymore.

She had been in immense pain and suffered for all 29 years that I was alive. Drugs were her escape. Addiction was her noose. I was lucky and slipped that rope over two decades ago.

I battled inherited demons- my father’s temper, my mother’s silence, and my grandmother’s penchant for Bloody Mary’s.

No one ever tells you- inheritance comes with a cost.

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Before and Now

We shatter and break

Over and over again

What matters is

what we rebuild

with the pieces

left behind

In the before life, I held his little hand and kissed his cheeks and laid my cheek atop his head. He’d tell me stories about George, his alligator. He’d watch Coraline on repeat and wear a colander as a hat. He would laugh in his sleep and wake up to tell me about a dream he had. He said love you momma nightly before bed.

In the now life, he doesn’t miss me and I am unsure.

Holding pieces left behind.

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The First Marriage

Our March 1st elopement dawned sunny and clear. Spring was early, I was running late.

I threw my long white slip dress into my backpack along with my white peep toe heels, grabbed my homemade bouquet of fake flowers (given to me by an ex boyfriend) and took off.

I didn’t want witnesses, but we needed at least two.

The Little White Wedding Chapel came into view, I met my groom outside. We tried to walk down the aisle. He had to pull me.

My feet had suddenly grown roots.

I kept thinking all I wanted was to be free.

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Dream Within a Dream

I reached for her across the space of a pillow. Jolted out of a dream within a dream, I felt her hand on my head. I was clutching her leg in my dream sleep. I sat up slowly and saw her smiling face.

I couldn’t help but believe she was really there, I wanted to hear her voice.

I blinked and ended up in the kitchen of our old house. I looked out the window and my car was missing,

I panicked.

And I realized she was gone.

My eyes flew open out of the dream within a dream.

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For The First Time

My grandma’s house perched on the side of a steep hill, just above the tree-line. My view from the guest bedroom consisted of the tops of pine trees and the Bay rising up to meet the line.

I loved the lemon trees and hydrangeas in the front yard best. My favorite part of the summer stay was picking and eating a lemon a day straight from the trees.

Right next to the blue hydrangeas I sang Tears in Heaven for my father for the first time.

Right next to the white hydrangeas I saw my father cry for the first time.

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Dreams to Remember

The bed was cold, my pillow soaked in sweat, but that’s not what woke me. I pulled myself out of the realm of nightmares by humming ……. a New Kids on the Block song, specifically “The Right Stuff.”

And though I’d woken in a panic, heart racing, sweat drenched head, I smiled briefly for beating back the thing that was dragging me under with a song from my childhood.

Only my brain would do something so ridiculous at 3:27 AM. Snuggling back down into the blankets, deep inhale, and darkness enveloped me for ninety more minutes. The best right stuff.

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More Than One Me

What if you could split yourself into multiples? I’ve always said I felt like I was split in two, the before me and the after me. But sometimes I wonder how many before me’s there are who all generated the after me’s.

The multiverse theory suggests that there’s infinite possibilities and that each universe contains a me that made a different decision. But what about this universe and all the different versions of myself here?

Looking back on decisions I’ve made…I can see clearly the person I was before and the person I was after.

Each decision causing the split.

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(The first 100 words I kicked off last week.)

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Thanks so much for being here friends. I appreciate each and every one of you. If you’d like to support my writing, please find a deal here -

Thanks

Vickie Fernandez

and

Stephanie Penn.

for taking part in the 100 words a day!