I am where I am and you're where you are

Writing is cathartic for me. I'm at my best when caught in the midst of severe melancholy. My emotions are raw, my mind tumbles thoughts around and around until those thoughts end up on my screen and from there, it's a snowball effect. When I'm good and caught in it, I can't stop thinking about the story, about the characters. I can't keep lines from running through my head. I can't keep from telling myself the details, the ones that don't matter to the actual story but matter to the character growth in my head. On and on, over and over.

Then there are the stories that I wish I could tell but can't because they aren't mine to tell. Perhaps I could tell them in some form, in a way that would mask the identity of the owner from most people. From "We Both Go Down Together" by the Decemberists to a comment like, "He sat at the dinner table and cried last night." These things created by other people...how do I respectfully make them mine? Where do I justify telling stories I can only fabricate from snippets of vague truth?

The greater the distance between myself and romance makes the gap between myself and Romance widen. I don't want that gap to widen. Leave the romance behind; I don't need him to be whole. But leave Romance in my grasp. Leave the wonder, the dewy, soft-focus sepia tone glory of possibility and sadness and loss and hope to me. Let me wrap my hands around it. Let me hold it to my chest. Please don't take that away. I need to create a forbidden love story; I need to create a loss story. Please. Don't take that away.