Ramblings of the Heart~ To Journals!

Today, upon waking, I have discovered that my journal is full, full of words, and pictures, and ideas and stories, and plans, and poems, and scribbles, and dreams.  Yes, indeed, this one has reached its maturity and is ready to retire on the top of a wooden shelf, in my living room, amongst its kin.  Its once blank pages have been filled with inspired longings and ravaged completely. These pages have been cried on, laughed over, smudged with dark chocolate, and stained with tea.  I find that journals have a life beyond the words of the stories of our lives that fill them.  I look upon my journal collection of 14 years with the greatest respect; each one has become a self contained history of my heart's wanderings.  

My whole life I have put words into blank books and pictures on to pages.  I have written poems on napkins and bus tickets and down the sides of receipts.  As a young girl I wrote the trials and tribulations of my small town life on Chinese writing paper, bound in colorful embroidered diaries, sent from a far away city.  

I  wrote shamelessly about unpopularity and adolescent insecurity, about rebellion and self discovery, about dreams and love.  I wrote every day after school, in my shared bedroom, secretly sheltering the page with my hand so that my sister couldn't see the secrets I was putting there.  I named my journal Bunny, because I liked the way Anne Frank called her diary Kitty.  And then, when I was 18, or there about, I burned them all in a frustrated and confused moment. I opened one, one day, and found a piece of myself vulnerably displayed upon the page, and like most humans, I simply couldn't bear it, couldn't find a way to fold it into my wholeness, and to love myself there.  Somehow I must have thought that by getting rid of the evidence, I could get rid of the pain.  It was an honest and understandable thing to have done, and now my heart aches with regret.

My rule now, when I come across something that I have written that makes me squirm and fold into myself with unrelenting embarrassment in the the face of...well who, perhaps God? Now I try to hold myself there, I make extra efforts to love the vulnerable woman that I can sometimes be, and oh, what strength there is here, not to mention that as the years go by I am quite confident the GOD is okay with my humanness.

So, yes, journals, words on pages, such a beautiful tapestry of soul, how can we possibly judge those authentic ramblings.  ( Course blogging is another way to get over this vulnerable landscape, eh eh eh)  I don't think we can, and I beg you not to, if ever the urge is there.  I hope that those journals in your closets, or on your shelves, or by your bedside have as much respect and revelry as all the stories you cherish.  I keep mine next to Shakespeare now. 

And so, today then, will involve a trip to my favorite book store to find some kind of wonderfully bound, blank unlined pages, just waiting to be filled.