Elation

It's over. It's done. I'm laughing and I'm crying. I've finally finished it, my masterpiece, the thing I've been working on for the better part of a year. My book. I've finally finished it.

I lean back in my seat, cracking my knuckles and stretching my palms, my hands numb after having been at the keyboard all day and night. It's okay though because I have finally finished.

I remember when I started this adventure, how easy I thought it was going to be. It wasn't easy. The characters I created became a part of me, they became real. The world they had lived in surrounded me as well, pulling me deeper and deeper until I was a part of it too. I’ll never forget that feeling. The feeling of complete submersion and then the feeling of having to bring yourself back to reality because the story was over. 

Writing that book had been one of the hardest things I’d ever done. Not just because of the time it took to think of a plot and the characters. Not just because of all the time I’d spent editing. Not because of the laborious nights staring at a computer screen with endless mugs of coffee. Rather, it was because of the attachments I had formed, the friends and enemies I had made. I lived in that world just like the characters did, I knew them like the back of my own hand. I cried when I had to kill them off or let them go. I cried when a good character turned bad. I smiled when things went right for the down on luck characters. I smiled when they finally got what they wanted. I was happy when they were happy, sad when they were sad, scared when they were, angry when they were. Those characters were me and I was them. That’s why it was the hardest thing I had ever done. 

As hard as it was, I didn’t regret it. Not in the slightest. It may have been the hardest thing I had ever done but it was also the best. I expressed myself on those digital pages with those typed out words better than I ever had before, better than I ever could have by talking. Those digital pages were a safe haven for me. They were a safe haven where I could talk about my deepest secrets, regrets, fears, and wishes without the fear of being judged. I was at peace in that make-believe land. I let parts of myself that I didn’t even know I had filter out onto those pages. 

That is the beauty of writing. You can be yourself, unapologetically yourself. There is no one to judge you, no one to tell you that what you think and feel is wrong. Writing that book was therapy for me. I was sad that it was over, but I was happy too. Elated really. I was in the best mental state of my life, proud of my accomplishments, proud of who I’d become. 

The people who would read my book in the future would never have the slightest bit of a clue as to where it really came from. But I would always know. It came from my heart and from my soul. I wrote it because it was what I wanted to read. I wrote it because it was what I saw and heard and felt. Damn the consequences. So what if others didn’t like it? So what if it never got published? So what if I was the only one to ever read it. It was my story and the fact that it was mine was the only thing that mattered.

I’m sure that there are many authors out there whose writing is better than mine, whose stories encapture everyone who reads them. I’m sure that my book will never make it up there to be one of the best, but that’s okay. I finished and I survived. I told a story that was my own, that I could believe in. Those were the only things that mattered. 

I stood up. I grabbed my empty coffee mug and walked to the kitchen. 

“Looks like I don’t need you anymore. Or at least I won’t for the time being,” I said to the emptiness of my home as I placed the mug in the sink. 

I hated coffee. I hated the taste of it, the watery bitterness. I hated the feeling it left in my mouth, the dryness. I hated every aspect of coffee except for the fact that it kept me awake, it gave me the boost I needed to keep going, to keep writing. I guess, in truth, I had a love-hate relationship with coffee. I suppose it wasn’t all bad. 

After washing the mug, I made my way back to my office. I sat, once again, in my desk chair staring at my computer screen. There was nothing left to say, left to write. I knew that. I just didn’t want this feeling of elation to stop, to end as the story had. 

People drink and they do drugs to feel elated. There was a time in my life when I had done both. I was past that now because this feeling, this elation was better than any drop of alcohol, better than any drug. I wished that I could feel this way forever. I wished that the elation would never end. 

“I’ll just have to keep on writing. I’ll write until I die, finish book after book if I have to. Just to keep this feeling,” I whispered to myself, massaging my still sore hands. 

From all the pain and turmoil that writing a book had brought me, there was so much good that came out of it too. The feelings I had felt during the entire process were the best, most genuine things I had ever felt in my life. I couldn’t get over it. It made me feel whole. It made me feel sane. It made me feel like I could make it through. 

Writing was my drug. Writing was my addiction. Writing was my elation.