inenarrable

\in-ih-NAIR-uh-bul\

adjective

: incapable of being narrated : indescribable

In the next year I need to write a book about...something. Anything I want. And yet I still gravitate toward writing about my friend Brian's suicide—out of habit, out of empty obligation, out of a desire to finish the seemingly unfinishable. This is a topic I have written about for years, but as I really sit down and try to organize my thoughts and ideas, I feel overwhelmed, discouraged, bored, unattached, and lost.

I wrote a short piece on the subject for a personal narrative workshop. My professor psychoanalyzed, as she often does, and told me I needed to ask myself: Why have I held onto this for so long? Why is it a pain that hurts so good? What is it masking? I've thought a lot about this over the last couple months, forcing myself to figure out what's at stake in this story. What happens if I let go to something I've held onto for so long? Who am I when I let go?

This is a difficult subject to write about—not for the obvious reasons. It is difficult because it has been sixteen years since the event occurred, because it is about absence and not substance, and because I haven't yet figured out what happens if I let go.

Perhaps the absence is INENARRABLE. Or, at least, right now. Although I'm not sure what else can happen in order for me to fully realize its nenarrability.

I'm just making up words left and right. Why? Because I can.

One day I'll figure this out, even if it means figuring out there's nothing to figure out.