Because I'm a writer

Most published writers will tell you that if you do not write everyday you're not a writer. I understand where they are coming from but i don't believe that is always the case I have been a writer for as long as I can remember. The need to write, to scribble down every thought, to make sense of my world by putting pen to paper has always been in my blood. I was born with it. However, I have not always had the ability to write.

Every writer gets writers block. Its a fact of life. It is the bane of every author, whether they write great novels or editorials for the local newspaper. It is usually the result of environmental things such as too much stress or not enough sleep or too much caffeine...which are also all quite problematic to writers in particular. What I've had over the past year isn't a writers block....its a me block.

Many times in my life I have dealt with hardship, crisis, physical and emotional abuse and devastating disappointment. Through all of this I have survived. I'm Irish...it's what we do. My mother in law once told me that the only thing she liked about me was that I was a survivor. It's obviously one of my driving characteristics. That being said, surviving isn't the same as living. In fact, surviving, in its most basic sense, means just that...surviving...getting by...making it through. It doesn't matter what condition you come out in on the other end. In order to have “survived” all you have to do...is make it out.

So...yay me!

I made it through.

Now what?

When looking at what my life has become through the series of shreddings it has endured over the past 45 years (am I really about to be 45? Mind...blown) there are moments I am proud of...accomplishments I can point to....even a few friends I haven't completely alienated with my scatterbrained, self focused behavior and thats great...but what have I written? And...if I'm not writing, whats wrong with me?

As a writer I know that the words and my soul are deeply interconnected. When I'm sad, poetry often oozes out of my pores to express the sadness. When I'm angry, its high energy battle scenes written to the sound of heavy metal music. When I'm reflective, music and philosophical questions come pouring out...from hand to pen to paper like water. So what am I feeling when I write nothing? Who am I? Where am I? Am I even myself when, for a year, no words tumble through my mind like a snowball starting at the top of a great hill, gathering strength, girth and speed as they steadily roll down to my fingertips and out onto the keyboard?

The answer, of course, is no....No, I am not myself anymore.

So...here I am, attempting too reset myself. A complete, W. J. Adams reboot. Mind, body, spirit...there is no part of me in which I have found my inspiration, in which I have found my soul. Every small set of wisdom I see is pawned off of someone else's ideas of who I am or who they need me to be. And so I will tear down, break apart and search through every part of what I have become, the survivalist without a face, without a voice, without a soul and I will find the damaged code because, for this writer, surviving just isn't enough. I need to LIVE.