Ripping Out My Heart
And Placing it on a Platter for You
During one of the writing days, I explored a change in my perspective — I used to believe to be a great writer was to open yourself up to the greatest heartbreak and bleed it onto the page. And in during that day, I claimed my perspective was now that to be a great writer you had to be in conversation with your deepest love.
After completing 30 days of writing though, I’ve realized you do have to bleed, even if just a little. Even if it’s a single drop hidden in a line only you recognize. Not every piece has to be an open wound, but the pieces that move us, in some way, cut through the surface.
Each day I would begin writing and ask myself, “how much of myself am I really going to show?”
I live in the esoteric. Thrive in the void. I’m more comfortable circling an idea—analyzing its origins, connecting it to myth or theory—than I am simply telling you: this happened to me. So each day, I shed a little more of my armor. And each day, I wrestled with the fear that what I was writing wasn’t “real” writing at all. That it was too much like a journal. Too raw. Too unfiltered. Too...me.
I began to doubt my words and my own style. Was I concise because I am a fan of Joan Didion, or am I just incapable of incorporating imagery? Were my metaphors landing or were they similar to what a first grader would produce?
It’s interesting that during my painting challenge, I felt my skill and confidence grow. But, with this writing challenge, I was eroded. It tore through the many faces I built up to avoid myself.
Writing didn’t give me confidence. It stripped me bare.
It didn’t build me up; it undid me.
And maybe that’s the point.
Because when I reached the edge of what I thought I was willing to share—when I hovered at that boundary between performance and truth—I met her. The woman behind the keyboard. Not the thinker, not the observer, not the artist.
Just me.
And she was tender. And she was tired. But she was honest.
You can read my heart in the pdf above, but I did want to leave you with day 29 — writing a letter to your past or future self. It’s not perfect, and it feels like just the start. But, if you do any day of this challenge, I hope it is this one.
We are so consumed with the now and the idea of what we want our future to be or what we wish we could change in the past that we miss who we had to become to get us to this exact moment. And who we are stepping into to where we will be. You may not be where you want to be, but you are still moving down the river. You are still becoming. Hold onto that feeling, and trust that you will look back at this moment and know you were exactly where you needed to be.
Day 29 — Letter
I hope you look back on this time with the fondness of a favorite chapter. I hope you look back and celebrate more beginnings than endings, more love than heartbreak, and be able to notice the subtle moments that shaped you.
Because our life is a stone thrown in a quiet lake, each version of us creating these ripples that build into each other, until we eventually dissolve into the stillness. I can only hope that this ripple might help build a wave that carries you forward.
I am trying to do right by you.
I started meditating again. And painting, taking longer walks to see how many flowers and plants I can remember. I wonder which of these habits will carry through the years, which ones you’ll still hold gently in your hands. I hope you keep painting. We lost our love of it for a bit, but again it returned. I hope it stays this time.
Do you still laugh with your whole chest, and cry when a piano ballad catches you off guard? Did you keep that innocent joy you get when you see a bee land on a flower? And did you hold onto the ones that make you feel more you, while releasing the ways we’ve been holding ourselves back?
Or do you feel far from who I am now? I just hope that distance is the kind that makes space for us to grow, not so far we abandon who we are.
I hope you look back on this as your favorite chapter, a piece of you you can reread when you need to remember just how far you’ve come.