If your house caught on fire, and you only had time to grab one thing before you ran out the door and watched your home go up in flames, what would that one thing be? For me, it’d be a box that I keep in my closet. The box is filled with all the journals I’ve ever kept, dating back to when I was eleven or twelve years old. These journals serve multiple purposes; they’re reminders of my past, they provide a time-line for the decline in my mental health, they give testimony to my growth over the last few years, and they’re one of my primary emotional outlets and methods of coping, among other things.
I feel better when I write things out. I can think better. I can breathe easier. It’s like once my emotions are out on paper, they’re no longer so frightening and overwhelming, and become much easier to deal with. It’s the same with my memories; once I write them out, they stop controlling me. It’s easier to move on when my memories aren’t all stuck inside my head, preventing me from going anywhere. And I’ve only just recently discovered how much more cathartic it is to share my writing with other people, getting their feedback and opinions, hence the reason for this blog.
I don’t know where I’ll end up going with this. I don’t know what I’ll write about, nor how regularly I will write. I’m not writing for anyone in particular, and so it really doesn’t matter who reads this or whether or not I get any comments (though any and all will be appreciated). I just want to write. I want to get all this stuff out of me, so I can make the transition into the adult world as smoothly as possible, dropping as much emotional baggage as I can. And you are more than welcome to follow along as I do it…
HI, I just saw your comments on rindy’s “sharing burdens” blog…was in the middle of writing a reply and I got bumped off the internet…will try again. I too write for similiar reasons and if our house catches fire, I’ve already told my wife to grab the notebooks
(just as aside, I use a 3 ring binder and also include photos, and good articles I read, plus stuff I write on my blogs etc. since you were “gutsy” enough to take your mask off I will too…I wrote the “wanna be swan” posts…and very much appreciate people’s input….God uses it (people’s input) to enable me to grow much quicker than if I just kept everything inside and attempted to figgure it out on my own…At this point in my life I’ve become a pretty transparent person…when I wrote the “swan” musings, I did it not so much to hide my identity, but because I think both men and women struggle w/ some of the same stuff. Anyway, besides my more heavy duty blog (hearttoheart) I write some lighter stuff on a second blog Ialsoliveonafarm.wordpress.com Keep writing! DM
[...] trying to remember why I first started writing, I went back and re-read my first blog. In it, I wrote: I don’t know where I’ll end up going with this. I don’t know what I’ll [...]