I started keeping a "journal" when I was 8. It was mostly filled with drawings and random sentences that really didn't make any sense with really bad spelling mistakes.
When I was 12, I had one with a lock on it, which gave me this weird false sense of security that no one would be able to break into it, which of course they did and then read most of my secrets.
When I was 13 I started keeping two journals.
One people saw me write in--all the time. I whined about school. My parents. Professed my undying love for John Taylor and Travis Fryman. I talked about baseball, movies, music and poetry. I wrote about how tragic my life was at that very moment.
The other, I wrote in only when I was alone and tucked it away in the dark corners of my closet, sometimes between mattresses and at one point in a play kitchen hutch in my parents attic. This journal, the red one, is where I let my "real" self live. This is the one where the life of a young girl turned into the life of a young woman who hadn't a clue as to what was going on. I talked about my introduction to boys, womanhood, Playboy, and inappropriate chatroom conversations. I explored parts of my mind that were just a little too dangerous for a girl of my age to be wandering through. This was the journal where I started to discover who I was as a person but more importantly as a woman. This was the journal where I was the most honest with who I was and who I wanted to be.
I kept the journal (in various forms) through my twenties before eventually abandoning it all together. It felt like this dirty little secret that I was keeping from everyone thus in turn felt like I dirty little secret I was keeping from myself. That part of who I was made those around me uncomfortable--I saw it when I tried to be that part of myself. It was greeted with skeptical gazes and laughter from friends who "just couldn't see it".
There is very much a part of me that wants to get back to that kind of honesty with who I am as a person, a woman and as a writer. There is very much a part of me that wants to feel like I'm not hiding a part of who I am because it makes someone else uncomfortable, which is why I've started Her Little Red Book. I've gone back and forth with myself about whether or not I should or shouldn't start a separate blog. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Miles from Ordinary. I love what I am able to post and share here. I appreciate all my readers and the interactions I have with them. But I also respect them and don't want to take my blog in an entirely new direction, especially when I'm not completely sure what direction that is going to be.
Maybe someday I'll merge the two together and it will just be one big happy blogging family. But until then, there shall be two and I'm totally fine with it. I'm sure it will feel like a case of split personality for a while, but for now it makes sense and I'll roll with it until that no longer rings true.
When I was 12, I had one with a lock on it, which gave me this weird false sense of security that no one would be able to break into it, which of course they did and then read most of my secrets.
When I was 13 I started keeping two journals.
One people saw me write in--all the time. I whined about school. My parents. Professed my undying love for John Taylor and Travis Fryman. I talked about baseball, movies, music and poetry. I wrote about how tragic my life was at that very moment.
The other, I wrote in only when I was alone and tucked it away in the dark corners of my closet, sometimes between mattresses and at one point in a play kitchen hutch in my parents attic. This journal, the red one, is where I let my "real" self live. This is the one where the life of a young girl turned into the life of a young woman who hadn't a clue as to what was going on. I talked about my introduction to boys, womanhood, Playboy, and inappropriate chatroom conversations. I explored parts of my mind that were just a little too dangerous for a girl of my age to be wandering through. This was the journal where I started to discover who I was as a person but more importantly as a woman. This was the journal where I was the most honest with who I was and who I wanted to be.
I kept the journal (in various forms) through my twenties before eventually abandoning it all together. It felt like this dirty little secret that I was keeping from everyone thus in turn felt like I dirty little secret I was keeping from myself. That part of who I was made those around me uncomfortable--I saw it when I tried to be that part of myself. It was greeted with skeptical gazes and laughter from friends who "just couldn't see it".
There is very much a part of me that wants to get back to that kind of honesty with who I am as a person, a woman and as a writer. There is very much a part of me that wants to feel like I'm not hiding a part of who I am because it makes someone else uncomfortable, which is why I've started Her Little Red Book. I've gone back and forth with myself about whether or not I should or shouldn't start a separate blog. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Miles from Ordinary. I love what I am able to post and share here. I appreciate all my readers and the interactions I have with them. But I also respect them and don't want to take my blog in an entirely new direction, especially when I'm not completely sure what direction that is going to be.
Maybe someday I'll merge the two together and it will just be one big happy blogging family. But until then, there shall be two and I'm totally fine with it. I'm sure it will feel like a case of split personality for a while, but for now it makes sense and I'll roll with it until that no longer rings true.
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