I started writing to let things out. The good, the bad, the ugly. Things that hurt. Things that made me happy. Anything, everything. I wrote them down in journals, pen to paper. It was the only way back then unless you wanted to do a type writer or you were lucky enough to have a computer and a floppy disk to save it to. We had a family computer and limited space, I was lucky if I got to use it for school. It was set up in my parents room and took such a long time to turn on. We could make a bag of popcorn and be half way done before the loading screen came up.
There was something nostalgic about putting pen to paper, rolling the ink over the page and watching it dance. I could almost feel the words leaving my body and transfer to the pen and flow through the little ball. All my deepest, darkest secrets came out on paper. And once they were there, it was like I forgot all about them. Any emotion, any heartache, anger, frustration – gone. Just like that, they were no longer a part of me. I could write for hours and be left feeling like an empty bottle afterwards, waiting to be filled again. I knew from a young age that words had a lot of meaning, that they could do damage if put in the right order. But I never thought that MY words could be used to damage me. Why would someone do that?
I kept many journals and I knew my mom and step dad had gone through them. That much was expected, I didn’t mind it. Why wouldn’t a parent want to read what their child was writing, especially if that child wasn’t telling the parents anything. I kept a lot to myself and the pages of my books. I grew up as an only child for the most part though I have 7 siblings. My days were filled with countless books, VCR movies, family dinners and TV sitcoms after. If I had friends in the apartment complex we were living in at the time, I would go outside to play for a few hours but mostly at night I would journal about my day. About the things that happened and what I thought about them. I didn’t tell people how I felt or what I thought, I didn’t think that they cared. Why would they? Most of them seemed to have their own ideas and thoughts on things and didn’t seem to want to hear anything else anyways. So I wrote it down.
It wasn’t until I got into middle school that I started to stray from my journals. I was gaining more friends and more confidence in myself. I was going out and doing more activities and living in the moment of things. I would journal from time to time and it would be pages upon pages. I started to have more complexed thoughts and more feelings towards things and people. My parents had stopped reading my journals and I felt more safe, secure to write freely, honestly. By sophomore year I had a whole box of journals. Some filled with thoughts, poems, experiences, memories, hopes and dreams of a future. I kept them all because I wanted to one day be able to find this box of memories in an attic and share with my future kids the joys and heartaches I had when I was their age…assuming I would have kids and they would go through the typical things I went through. I kept shoe boxes of mementoes, ticket stubs, calendars, print outs from myspace or Xanga. You name it, it was probably there.
In my late teens, I started to write again. I was going through changes and trying to be an adult. I didn’t have my mom to lean on or at least I wasn’t trying to lean on her. We both agreed that we had to lessen our co-dependent bond and move in different directions but she assured me she would always be there for whatever I needed. But she had a life of her own and I needed to find my way. I needed to be able to cope with what I was going through and find ways to deal with my life as it was. So I bought a new journal and pens and began to write. I kept the journal in my room, on my dresser, not thinking that anyone would read it. It was private and I thought I was in a relationship where privacy meant something. I couldn’t have been more mistaken.
My best friend had been going through her life and trying to find her way. We weren’t speaking as much. She was having a baby and trying to make a marriage work long distance. She was in a whole new phase of life too. I have never been the person to trouble anyone with my issues and I wasn’t about to start then. I wrote all my deepest, darkest, taboo thoughts down. I pondered life lessons and choices and at times let my imagination run wild with the fictional fantasies based on real life. It was my sanctuary, my home away from home hidden between pages of truths and despair. It was my best friend, my mother, my lover of all things me. I poured my soul into those pages at times. I felt like maybe it was the only thing to know who I really was inside. So of course, why would the person I love not want to read it… I just didn’t think they would read it without permission and throw it back in my face.
I should have known then that things would be bad. But hindsight is 20/20. I came home from work one day to find the whole apartment in disarray. All my books, notebooks, journals, boxes of keepsakes thrown everywhere. And an angry boyfriend ready to spit fire at me for things that had nothing to do with him. I spent the rest of the day and night cleaning up and reorganizing my memories all while being yelled at, called names and being berated for having feelings, thoughts, experiences. Even my laptop had been gone through and things erased. I told myself that night that I would never let him have access to my most inner thoughts again, no one would. I would lock them up so tight within my brain that no one would ever know who I truly am or what I thought or wanted. I was so scared of ever being that vulnerable again.
Because of this, all my other outlets were stripped from me too. My music, my friends. Anything that brought me joy and/or peace no longer had value. I did whatever he wanted me to do. Watched sporting events on TV, played video games, hung out with his friends, moved to the states where he would prosper and I had no prospects. I allowed my light to dim. My imagination was no longer filled with warm thoughts and fantasies but with worried, terrifying thoughts. Was I good enough? Was I doing what was expected of me? And I had no way of relieving this plague that grew inside of me daily. No words would even come out, in any form, to grant release from this torment. Some how, I just learned to live with it. Things that should have phased me, did nothing. Shocks to my system where dull pinches, fading like the sun into the night. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know how I felt. What was this life I was leading? It wasn’t mine, it was his. Then one day, years later, I woke up. I sat in front of a blank computer screen, three kids napping in the next room, toys thrown all over the floor, dishes piled up in the kitchen, and I began to write. Just like that, my life was coming back to me starting with the tips of my fingers.
At first it was just one little document, and then another. Slowly I started to arrange my my thoughts and feeling on the computer screen, on paper, through song, poem, blog postings. I kept it to myself, didn’t tell anyone I knew. I was so afraid of it getting back to the one person I knew could use it to hurt me the most. I decided the safest format would be to type everything out. If I wrote it down, he could find it if I left it somewhere. But if I typed it, I could take it anywhere and lock it away with a password he’d never know. I never expected anyone to read it, if I’m being honest. Then I found someone I trusted, someone I knew understood me, and I gave her access. And then another, and another. The whole world can access my every thought and feeling. Go through the pain and heartache, the joy and happiness. Everyone but him. I only send the link to my most trusted, to people I want to let in. It’s my gift to them, with a little digital bow, a genuine look inside my soul.
Is this thing working?? 