Writings

At this moment, I'm being thoughtful and full of memories.

Last night I rediscovered a treasure trove of writings spanning from my high school days through college and ending perhaps six or seven years ago.

I feel like it was all done by another person in another lifetime.

It's strange looking back at the person you used to be and seeing the things that consumed you not long ago.

In a week, I'll celebrate my third wedding anniversary. My son just turned one. Our dog will also be turning three. And we've been in our house two years now. This has been my life. This is my world. It revolves around this new family unit we are building. And while there can be room for writings and words, I find little time for it all.

I don't write much anymore, and at times like now, I miss it. Most of my thoughts no longer reach the page, left hanging somewhere in the depths of my subconscious mind with a longing to be shared. I have so many, "write that down" moments, but when I grab a journal to do so I get distracted with something else and the page remains bare.

Seemingly random thoughts all connected back if I have the chance to explain the connection.

I was told that a writer should always have a notebook handy, so for years I did just that. In my cleaning last night, I found half a dozen spiral notebooks full of ideas, short stories, recollections of dreams, plans for the future and bits of poetry.

I didn't take the time to reread any of it, knowing that if I started I would be sitting in the same spot hours later still flipping through pages and plotting out how I should finish this long abandoned idea or contemplating how to write a hundred news ones.

Instead, I found an empty shelf and stored the books away, thinking as I did about what my son might think one day when he came across the words I'd written. I wondered if he might give the pages a few extra seconds, or instead toss them aside in a pile "to be stored" or perhaps even in one "to be trashed."

I suppose that's how life goes though. We struggle every day to find value and meaning and to be something lasting. Back all those years ago, I found those pages as a source of release. Each one fulfilled my need to get all that was bottled up inside, in my head, out into the world in some form. I shared some, and I kept most back from eyes other than mine. But I put it down. I captured a time frame in my life. A time I have to search to remember was me.

I know I am that girl still. I remember her dreams and longings. I remember well her fear of being alone. It's still there. Just different.

Perhaps I'll pick up a pen again. Maybe I'll continue words here.

Maybe.