Pages I've Wasted

Day 9: Journal unfiltered.

Being so honest in my writing is cathartic. So you’d be surprised how much I filter in my journal.

Each day I carry in my handbag a wallet, a journal, a notebook, and no fewer than ten lip glosses. I carry the wallet to live my life, the journal to feel my life, and the notebook to feel my life honestly.

When I contemplate the idea of my journals being read by future posterity, I’m excited. I have spent a good deal of my existence thinking, evaluating, and recording. I’ve been a scientist to the human condition or at the very least MY human condition. I have asked questions, hypothesized, conducted experiments, and secured personal conclusions.

Still with all of the completed journals I own, I’m embarrassed by entry number two EVER of an eight year old girl declaring her love for Luke Perry. I sat there as an eighteen year old re-reading shamefully in my condemning handwriting my ridiculousness. Needless to say, I’ve been filtering ever since.

Now when I feel something I would rather not pass along to forthcoming generations, I pull out the notebook and compose unabashedly.

Today I thought about one affair of the last twelve months which deeply affected me. And then I wrote it. I wrote it ALL out. I wrote until my hand hurt, then took a break, then continued writing more. I wrote the good, the bad, and the ugly. I wrote what I love about how I handled it and I wrote what I would have changed if I ever could.

Today I gifted myself the gift of earnestness.