Blogs and Journals

Procrastination......

It's a Friday evening, and I should be doing the dishes...or preparing a CD for my upcoming show, "Musical of Musicals: The Musical" so that the cast can practice outside of rehearsal......or I should be tidying up the pile of STUFF that has just accumulated this week. I don't mind doing the dishes; there's something relaxing about the sound and feel of the warm water running over the plates and over my hands. I don't mind preparing the CD; in fact, I'm excited about this show, and looking forward to starting rehearsals next week. And I even enjoy tidying up accumulated "stuff" before it becomes burdensome.

Should should should.....

What I am doing right now is getting back to something I love, and have always loved: writing.
For years and years I kept a diary. As a little girl, I recorded the events of each day. As a tween, one of my mentor friends suggested that I record my feelings, and so I did that, too. As a teenager and college student, I wrote less frequently, but always with a sense of urgency and deep meaning. I have many many many filled books, evidence of growth and insanity and hope and overly trite musings.

Somewhere along the line, I stopped writing for myself. I wrote letters to friends, and eventually I shifted to more emails than letters. Something has been lost--this record, this lasting testimony to a life. Beyond that, the ability to calm down and write and process and reflect is something I have forgotten to call upon. In the chaos of creating a world for myself in my 20 and 30-something world, I have stopped recording and reflecting on it.

When Papa was ill, I started looking through old letters. I save everything because I love looking at old letters, seeing old handwritings, remembering the joy of opening old envelopes. I found a poem he had written, and a few letters. I was so grateful to have them. I wish I had more. Then I started poring through old diaries, and a few key days and growth-points came alive for me again. There are so many days I have lost...and here are some that I have refound.

My instinct was to go back to journal-writing post haste. I'm always cautious with starting a new journal, though, and my new marble-covered notebook and I are in our getting acquainted mode. It feels good to write again, and yet, I realized that I feared something about the the permanence of my words in pen.

How much of what I write is real...and how much of it is just my perception? If I write something in my journal, years hence, does it become the truth? What about the important facts I leave out? Conversely, writing in a journal is a delightfully private act---but I have a splendid and snoopy younger sister who started a club, the AJC Detective Agency, whose childhood mission was to sneak into my diaries when I went into the shower. Therefore, as real as I want to be, it isn't thoroughly private.

So, somehow this blog is fascinating for me. It is ephemeral; I can erase any entry; I can play with any photo or layout; I can put things in and take them out on whim. It is also not intended to be private, although probably only I 'll be reading it in the end! Therefore, I don't need to worry about leaving things out--it is understood that there is much that I am leaving out. But what matters is what I am putting into it....and for now, it is my heart.

Now, there, I've written for today. Dishes, piano and piles, here I come!