There are words I reach for when I haven't thought about something long enough.
Busy.
Fine.
Tired.
Stressed.
Excited.
Unsure.
They aren't necessarily wrong.
But sometimes they are carrying far more than one word should.
Busy can mean my calendar is full. It can also mean I have taken on too much, that my attention is scattered, or that several things feel important and I haven't decided which one gets to come first.
Tired can mean I need sleep.
Or that I am tired of deciding. Tired of accommodating. Tired of carrying something that has quietly become heavier than I realized.
And I don't know can mean exactly that.
But not always.
What do I mean by that?
I have been noticing this in my own notebooks lately.
As I wrote in this month's opening reflection, I have all these half-formed thoughts arriving through school. Ideas about creating, building, perhaps doing something quite different from anything I have done before.
The easiest description is:
I don't know what I want to build.
And that is true.
But if I stay with the sentence for a little longer, I discover that I know more than it suggests.
I know that I am increasingly drawn to creating rather than only executing.
I know that certain problems make me immediately wonder whether there might be another way to solve them.
I know that ideas from class have begun following me home.
I know that I want to make something that feels like mine.
I still don't know what that something is.
But I don't know is no longer the whole story.
There is a difference between not having the answer and having nothing to say.
The first word is sometimes only the beginning
Perhaps this is why the question What do I mean by that? can be so useful on a page.
I'm overwhelmed.
What do I mean by overwhelmed?
I have too much to do.
What feels like too much?
There are several things that matter to me, and I don't know what gets to come first.
The circumstances haven't changed.
But the problem has.
It now has edges.
Or perhaps:
I'm excited.
About what?
Something new.
What about the newness matters?
I like discovering that there may be possibilities I hadn't imagined for myself.
Again, no answer. No plan.
Just a sentence that is closer to the thing underneath it.
Not the perfect word. A more precise one.
There is a temptation, especially when journaling, to believe that somewhere underneath all our messy thoughts is the right word waiting to be uncovered.
I don't think that is quite what we are doing.
Language is imperfect. Our experiences are usually more complicated than the words available for them. Sometimes two seemingly contradictory words can both be true.
We can be grateful and restless.
Excited and apprehensive.
Content and curious about what else might be possible.
Something can feel difficult without being wrong.
Something can feel comfortable without being right.
The aim isn't to reduce all of that complexity to the perfect label.
It is simply to notice when the word we have chosen is hiding a distinction that matters.
This week
This week, begin with the words that come easily.
Don't distrust them. Just don't assume they are finished.
Stay with them for another sentence.
Ask what you mean.
Make a distinction.
Try another word.
And if you still can't quite put a pin on something, leave room for that too.
We aren't trying to name everything.
We're trying to get a little closer to what we mean.
Seven prompts for finding the right words
- The first word – What word have you been using most often lately to describe yourself, your days, or something you're going through? Write it down. Then ask: What do I actually mean when I say this?
- Beneath “I don't know” – Choose something you've been saying I don't know about. Don't try to answer it. Instead, begin with What I do know is... and keep writing. How much do you already know around the edges of the unknown?
- Make the distinction – Choose two things you may have been treating as though they mean the same thing: tired or depleted; difficult or wrong; comfortable or right; wanting or needing; uncertain or reluctant. What changes when you separate them?
- The almost-right word – Find a word you've recently used that feels mostly, but not completely, true. Write three possible alternatives beside it. How does each word change what you see?
- What I've been trying to say
Begin a page with: What I've been trying to say is...
Don't prepare the sentence. Keep writing beyond the first answer. - Describe before you explain – Choose something that feels unresolved. Write only what you actually know or have observed about it. For now, leave out why you think it happened, what it says about you, or what you should do next. What remains?
- A truer sentence – Look back through this week's pages. Find one thought you can describe more accurately now than you could at the beginning of the week. Write the old sentence. Then write the truer one beneath it.
It doesn't need to be the final word.
Just a closer one.
