III.

I’m trying not to be too outwardly focused with these journals. Think too much about how they’ll be perceived or picked apart or even read at all. But I have this underlying fear that lives inside of me about sharing my work, my thoughts, myself. And I’ve been wondering why that is, when I remembered a story. I was a freshman in highschool, and I’d been keeping a profoundly personal, disturbingly sad journal. It was my safest place, my confidant, and I took it everywhere with me. At the time, I wasn’t staying home a lot and was staying at various friend’s houses throughout the week, so fittingly, the journal came with me. Long story short, I went bowling one night and my friend’s car was broken into. Everything was stolen. My backpack, my journal, my deepest secrets. I felt violated, ripped open, raw. I fixated on every entry, every poem, every tear soaked page in the hands of that petty thief. I mourned the pages I couldn’t remember, I waited for the journal to be released, readers teething through my torment. And most of all, I felt like part of me never was returned that day. After that, I stopped writing for over 5 years. I was terrified of being myself, to myself, for myself, because that was taken away. I always find it interesting how things connect as you get older. How my journal being stolen 10 years ago played such a pivotal part in the losing of myself and now the finding again.