The Pen Was a Truth Seeker Part 1

In all my wrestling with "what to do with my life" it almost always ends with a pen or keyboard. It's where teach myself to think one thought at a time. It's where I start to breathe deeper. It's where I see a truth that can lay hidden under all the crap of doubt, fear, and shame. It's where I come back to myself. Therefore, it would only make sense that I would "figure out" where to go next, after writing it all out. This would surely be my clarity.

Yet lately, every time I have picked up my computer, I'd freeze, sigh, and close it. Stumped. Not knowing where to begin. Frustrated by the all to familiar road block to my own words.

Then today I was led to a dusty, unorganized, and sacred box in my basement.

When I was 14 I got my first journal. This pretty little thing held a lot of weight. More, I am sure, then it was ready for. I had dreams of pouring my heart out to this pretty little private sanctuary. I had visions of myself sprawled across my bed, feet swinging in the air, one hand writing while the other one twirled hair, and the birds chirped outside my window. I'd write about the new boy I liked or new shoes I wanted or how happy with myself and my life I was. My oh so simple and perfectly happy teenage life. This journal was supposed to give me that simplicity. The fact that I now had a journal, like every young teenage girl should according to the latest teen magazine I had read, would surely make me more of a “normal” young teenage girl. This pretty little girly box of binded pages would make me right, happy, and all would be well.

Then I sat down to write for the first time.

My plan tanked. This was obviously going to be a throw down. As I racked my brain for the least complicated, whimsical, girly girl, light hearted thought I could find…….I was only met with fierce opposition.

My struggle, my confusion, my desperate, my self-loathing, my fear…they all began to shout. It was as if they knew I had that pen in my hand and they refused to roll over and pretend. No matter how pretty this little journal was.

Sitting there, pen in hand, reality became undeniable. The pen was a truth seeker. With every effort I made to be giggly and girly and silly and carefree the contradiction building in my gut was palpable. The pen was in my hand, the hand that was attached to my arm, the arm and the hand that carried the same blood flowing through them. This blood coming from my heart. The very same heart that was a pumping hard and fast with a cry for more.

My heart and my pen. Instant comrades. Instant allies. It was as if they recognized one another. Like this was the plan all along. Their work together, powerful. My desire to deny, strong. It would take me another twenty something years to understand, I was only along for the ride.

My dreams of “normal” never stood a chance.