self portrait taken with the iPhone using the Toy Camera app
I remember my first diary as a young child. It was pink with flowers and stripes and had a golden lock and a tiny skeleton key. I would sit on my sweet canopy bed in my bedroom circled by my tribe of stuffed animals and posters of Leif Garrett, Shaun Cassidy, Peter Frampton and, yes, Barry Manilow writing riveting entries on everything from what I had for lunch to who said hi to me at school that day.
I am blurry on the details but something happened during that time which taught me that the words shared between the pages of a secret diary could be read by the judging eyes of others, even if there was a sweet golden lock to protect those secret and sacred thoughts. At that point I stopped writing down my stories and wouldn't pick up a diary again for years.
I began to write in a journal again in my early twenties, mostly because I needed a place to put all the emotions that one goes through during those years and partly because a woman I admired told me she kept a private journal. My words during that chapter in my life were robust with angst, poetry, quotes, dreams, stories, fears, lessons, romance, the beauty of the moon, stars, sky and clouds and how my life would be perfect if only my boobs could be bigger and my bum could be smaller.
When I first started writing again at that age I had created an entire fantasy journal scenario in my head of how I would go about it. The posters of 70's teen idols were replaced with visions of a bubble-filled, claw-foot bathtub circled with dozens of candles and soft music. My skin would be blanketed in lavender-scented velvet water and cupped by marble smooth white porcelin. In this vision my hair would be clipped up loosely with perfectly messy damp tendrils winding down my neck and, of course, I would be creating nothing but lyrical prose in this state with a glass of wine as my companion... or sometimes a man serenading me with a guitar on the other end of the tub would appear as my companion, but only sometimes.
Oh yes. Clearly I took this newfound journal writing quite seriously if not ceremoniously and downright cheesy.
The one time I did try on this fantasy scenario (though admittingly it wasn't in a clawfoot tub and sadly there was no man with guitar) all I managed to spill onto the pages of my journal were titanic passages of cold bubble-less bath water; a lesson in how the fantasy often looks in reality.
So I dropped the journal ritual nonsense and just began writing. I wasn't diligant about it I simply wrote whenever inspiration called, which was never once in a bubble-filled bathtub.
When I moved to Alaska in the mid-nineties I found plenty to write about. Pages were dedicated just to the way the light plays with the colors in the Alaskan sky alone, though at that time part of early-twenties me still carried the false hope that bigger boobs perhaps held the key to eternal happiness. In Alaska I was deep-sea fishing, dog-sledding, mural-painting and hiking during the midnight summer sun and depressed and addicted to painkillers in the cold, dark winter learning to walk again after knee surgery. I filled up quite a few books during those times.
I had a new friend who I was just getting to know when I first moved there. He and I became very close (though not in a romantic way) and he shared with me that he was writing a book which was a dream of his. Since he lived in another state he would send me pages for my notes and feedback. I remember always being so excited when I would receive large envelopes in the mail knowing what was inside. I thought he was very talented and remember feeling honored that he trusted me to read and give feedback on something very personal for him.
I remember a time months later when we were together for some occassion. I was thinking that since he had put his trust in me that I wanted to give that same feeling back to him. I remember being quite brave (read: naive) in the moment (a moment of which I am sure there was alcohol involved) and spontaneously decided to show him one of my journals. I wasn't looking for feedback, I just wanted him to know and see a bit more of my heart.
With my heart pounding outside of my chest he took my journal, carelessly flipped through a couple of pages and quickly handed it back to me along with the words I have books filled with bad poetry too.
At that point I stopped writing again. Insecurity and fear tightened the grip they already had on me and what I took from that moment was that what I had to say wasn't worth saying. That real stories were only meant for real writers and that I was nowhere near good enough. I have carried this as my story for years.
Yes, I write a personal online blog, and have for the past five years, but fear keeps me from sharing certain stories here. My heart still pounds when I hit the publish button on a post thinking that perhaps I am just releasing my bad poetry to the world. I would like to say that this is a space where I let it all out but that's not true. But the desire is there to rewrite some of the false stories I carry and this blog is one way of doing that for me as is the personal journal I started to write in again about a year ago.
Sometimes I find that it's hard for me to share too deeply here because there are helpful souls with good intentions who want nothing more than to unwrap it all for me, to project their ideas and thoughts onto my experience, to provide me with the answer to my question. I say this because I have done this countless times with others, in the past I have wanted to fix the problem for those I care for.
It took me years to truly understand that sometimes we just need to be heard and my job as a listener is not to unwrap or fix anything for anyone else. There is no feedback for me to give unless directly asked and all I want to do for anyone who shares their heart with me is to simply thank them for their openess and gently hold a safe space for them. I still struggle with this at times, but I work on it daily.
I don't write in this space because I am seeking advice, I come here seeking connection. I come here (to the world of blogs) to explore, discover kindreds and gain insight and inspiration. To share my story and to know yours. To recognize there is a connection in our shared spaces. To be seen.
I am the only one who can unwrap the layers of my story, just like you are the only one who can unwrap the layers of yours but it's in these very personal exchanges of our collective truths and community where much of this unwrapping of our layers and seeing each other takes place.
What I am seeking to do, as are many bloggers, is create and document a coherent narrative of my story so that I am able to understand who I authentically am, where my fears and triggers stem from and why I make the choices that I do. I realize that in order to do this I need to reach inside and feel around in those dark, scary, often cold and icky underlayers, the ones that stick around no matter how much soul work I tend to do.
I often need to put on the headlamp, light a candle, grab a lantern and spend some time excavating and illuminating these places where I continuously choose resistance so I may now see them from a shifted perspective and release some of these falsehoods I carry.
The story I shared today about my journals is one that surfaced after writing this guest post for Kate's blog while she is in Italy. You can read it here.
When she asked me to contribute I just remember feeling so much resistance in searching for a story to tell that I almost couldn't face that fear. It felt easier to choose resistance rather then own a moment where I felt courageous. So instead I wrote my post from a different perspective.
After I finished the post for Kate is when the memory of what my friend told me years ago surfaced and I was once again face-to-face with my fictional story of not being enough that I have believed all these years. Whether it be here or in a private journal I want to unrwrap these stories.
Incidentely, I don't blame my friend at all; I know his intention was never to hurt me. I chose the story I carried from that day forward. There are many stories similar to this I carry, forgotten moments that took shape in the mind of a once very insecure girl who has chosen to stay small for much of her life.
Kate was right when she asked me if this was somehow "opening the doorway to the gates of hell." In a way, yes, it absolutely is. But I think walking boldly through this doorway is what will change my fictional story in the long run to one that is bigger and true.
