I have always been a compulsive journal writer. It’s the way I process my experiences and at the same time it becomes my experience. I can’t conceive of a life without writing, it’s simply the thing I do the most of just after breathing and eating.
Do you like to write? Have you ever kept a journal? Is it something you have ever thought of doing but were afraid to do because someone might read it? Are you comfortable with what is going on inside your own mind when confronted with it on the page? Could you make the time for it? There’s no doubt that there are numerous hurdles that one has to jump over to keep a daily appointment with oneself.
If I look back through my earliest journals, I see how much internal censorship I lived with in my teens and early twenties. Not only was I afraid that someone might know what I was thinking…I was afraid to discover it for myself. Still I wrote with one hand tied behind my back and managed to persevere.
Then I fell in love. It was a good thing I was writing then, because without some help, love can kill you. Falling into anything can be dangerous, but fall into love is the steepest, fastest fall. God help us.
And to add insult to injury I fell in love more than once. Someone once said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. Also, hindsight is perfect.
The worst falls are the ones you do in front of the person you are falling for, but where they are left standing…unmoved, unshaken, seemingly unaware…blameless. “Are you alright?” they say looking down at you from a very high place. “What am I going to do with you?” they mumble assessing the damage and wondering if any of it has rubbed off on them. You have fallen and they have not, despite all the obvious flirtations to the contrary …well not entirely…they are confused but definitely, cool, calm and collected. If you look carefully, and who does that, you will see that one foot is already out the door.
Of course there are times when you are the one still standing and someone else has been doing the falling. That can be uncomfortable. Why are we human beings so messy sometimes?
You might think I left something out. Like what about the times where both people fall in love. Ok, well, has anyone seen “I love Lucy” or “The Honeymooners”? You know Fred and Ethel? Well…they must have fallen at the same time, how else would two people wind up together for twenty to forty years. So this is what we are looking at. Anyway you slice it, falling is falling.
Journal writing may not stop the fall, but it can keep you from falling through the floor.
And so a new day begins…
