Aging has been almost constantly on my mind for the past year, and I've been meaning to write about it for just about that long. But there are so many facets to the topic, so many thoughts in my head. Why is it so hard to write them down as they come to me, instead of trying to recapture them days or months later?

I watched the Uma Thurman movie "Motherhood" on cable the other day. It's about motherhood, yes, but it's also about aging, and facing the life you've created for yourself when you weren't paying attention. Her character was a writer who never published anything other than music reviews, and she tries to blog regularly to compensate. This spoke to me more than anything else in the movie somehow.

I want to write. I want to write! All the time! I want to say every little thing that pops into my head! I want to be heard, I want to be understood, I want to see the page fill up, I want to play with words, I want to fight with my SpellCheck over words I thought I knew how to spell properly, I want to debate how many sentences I can start with "and" before moving on from rebellion to idiocy.

Realizing there was something you were supposed to do with your life that you never got around to... now that's a kick in the ass. I don't care if I never publish (ok, maybe a little), but I need to write! I need to finish my novel, I need to start the new one, I need to actually write all the short stories in my head. There is no "want", this is all about "need". I need to get these words out of me, on to the page, out into the world.

Back to the movie, Uma Thurman's character is trying to write a 500 word piece for a chance to win a dream job - blogging for money. She asks her husband to go over it and to "be honest." She flips out when he does just that. He uses the word "banal" for part of it. At the end, he writes in big letters (red ink of course!) "WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SAY?" Later, he tells her he was only trying to get her to stop being ironic and snarky (he says something about how that comes to her as easily as breathing), and to write something real.

How can dialogue like that not resonate with me? Every time I open my mouth or post to Facebook or manage to blog, I am snarky. I allude to the truth, without quite saying it. I do post and blog reality from time to time. Spill my bloody entrails for the entire world to see type stuff. But I tend to repeat myself: snarky, bitter, snarky, moan, snarky, moan, moan, snarky, bitch, moan, snarky, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan...

If I wrote regularly, I would have more to say in between bitchfests and pity parties. Duh!