I miss writing

I've always had terrible handwriting. I like to believe that it is because my hand doesn't move as fast as my brain so I leave letters only half written. It all makes sense to me of course but to anyone else it's just squiggles on a page.

As a communicator being clear and legible is something of a prerequisite so you would think that I would welcome the laptop, smart phone and tablet that means I don't have to write and then hope others can decipher my scrawl but I miss writing.

In fact I miss holding a pen.

The best thing about my tablet is the 'pen' I bought that saves me using my fingers. I find myself twirling it as I read the screen, desperate to write a note to myself or scrawl over the text.

There's something immediate, visceral, wonderful about handwritten words.

Whole days and maybe even weeks pass when I don't write anything. Cheques are a thing of the past, we push buttons instead of signing, we tap out an email instead of writing a letter, I even edit documents on-screen rather than like the old days when I printed them out and marked up for the next revision. I had a birthday recently and most of the cards were lovely, bespoke but didn't have a single sweep of pen ink.

What can I write? Should I really want to write, after all I'm pretty bad at it? But I used to write notes, I've got books full of illegible pen and ink that I made during meetings, when I had a bright idea or needed to remind myself of the tasks for the day. Now I just think of a notebook as something extra to carry around, it feels like a burden when in fact it is really something to be celebrated and encouraged.

Tomorrow I will buy a new notebook and I will find something to write about with a proper pen.