Where have all the words gone?

I've been contemplating this passion i have for the written word. I've been contemplating, and reading, and fantasizing; i've been doing every "writerly" thing except actually writing and i'm left with the nagging question of "why?".
This morning at 3am i woke with a fabulous idea for a story that quickly vaporized when my feet hit the floor. Where do the words go? Where do the words go when i sit to write, or when i reach for my bedside pen and paper? Sometimes i fancy they have gone to the beach, or a mountain's peak, closer to God than i can get from my 15 acres. I feel them and God more at the beach, but i suppose if i lived at the beach, i would imagine the words in the middle of 15 acres of grass and trees and kittens.

As i wondered this morning it came to me that i have a great deal of trouble writing about my life. If i write about my childhood, will i hurt someones feelings? What if i remember things wrong, or remember the wrong things? Will i wake a sleeping monster from my past and invite it into my present? Will i offend someone living or dead? And really, who cares? How is my life, my history, my experience good or bad noteworthy to an innocent bystander who's eye happens to fall upon my page? Who would read about my traumas and the passage of my time? How do i make a past that was hardly livable at times readable, or worthy of reading now?

I suppose that is a question we all face in one way or another. "Do i matter, and if so how and to whom?"

Maybe i'll place a moratorium on the contemplating, and reading and fantasizing about writing. Instead, maybe i'll use that time to write. Maybe the answers will come then. Maybe i'll find their hiding place, those illusive words. Maybe.