Writing is like a meter by which I am able to measure the amount of free space in my life. When I have enough space, writing falls into place for me naturally, like a rhythm in my soul. I write journal entries, blogs, poems, lyrics, a little bit of everything in turn. When my life gets disorganized and chaotic-feeling, I somehow end up leaving my pen and paper buried beneath the innumerable disheveled piles of my life. The words I should be writing are left to ferment within me, intoxicating my internal perspective until I feel dizzy with all the observation I am withholding. There is a list, or a file cabinet, or some stack of paperwork in my head that represents "what I'll write about when I have the time."
The secret is that no one ever really just "has time" once they actually start living their life in an adult direction. In the bigger-than-me world, I have to learn to make time. It is the struggle that winds itself around my feet so often while I'm walking through this life. I'll start to feel a little winded, but I'm surviving, so I walk on until suddenly, without knowing why, I'm facedown in the muck and the mess of everything, realizing that I have not made space for me in way too many days. Either this, or I just start to feel quieter and quieter on the inside. All the unwritten sentences pile up until they are blocking every escape route from the inside out, and it starts to feel like the ominous calm of imprisonment, like self-inflicted house arrest. So, to open a window or a door or a hole in the wall, to breathe the outside air, I end up here.
And I have a lot to talk about.
First, I want everyone to know that I have reached the end of something.
An era has been completed, a season of my life which I will always remember with the clarity of fond memory, and the intensity of bitter struggle. Every moment will be treasured, re-visited, stored up. Every good cry, every deep laugh, every homecoming and prom; none of this will be lost. All that I have lost is my friend, the one who has known the depth of my heart in all of these things, the one who received my words with a quiet and an open face, who has been, at times, my only confidant. But this was not meant to last forever, and we both knew that from day one.
I have reached the end...
of my pink pages.
Now. For those of you who are already dialing my number to console me over the break-up, let me clarify: I'm talking about my journal. After nearly two years of confiding, I finally reached the end. What a moment. My last entry was actually written on the backs of twelve brown napkins in the Buford Starbucks a few weeks ago. I transferred some of the words (they wouldn't all fit) into my journal a couple of days after writing them. I wrote part of that last entry with you in mind, and so here is a little bit of those last few pages...
"pg. 1 2/29/08
Last entry. Or maybe, second to last, depending on how long winded I find myself to be. I'm coming to you from a satellite location- brownish, organic-looking napkins, sitting in the Buford Starbucks across from the mall. I knew when I left my house that I'd want my journal for something, but I ignored the instinctive wailing of my inner muse and left without it. There really is nothing wrong with the napkins except that I am left wondering exactly how many pink pages I would be filling if I had them with me to fill. I think, at this point, all I have left it one back-of-a-page and one both-sides. How strange to run out of room in your own home. It is so appropriate to my life right now. Over the course of all the time I have spent giving my words to these pages, I have both adored them and wished for them to be done with. Recently, at the very end, I've been not unhappy but ready
pg. 2 2/29/08
to move on and so looking forward to whatever new binding will hold my life next. It is so very like my present transition from highschool to college. I promise I wrote the last few sentences with my journal in mind only, but when I read them over and think of highschool instead, it's a perfect fit. Every time I look at this journal as of late, I think "it is almost time for something new." Much the same, when I look at my school books, my room, all the common workings of my present life, I think of graduation, of where I will be by August of this year, and I dream. In September or 2007, I said to Erin, "this year is gonna change our lives." I meant the school year, the summer of '08, not just until the end of 2007. I think I can say with confidence that I've been right thus far.
[later in the napkin-journaling] So, I definitely wasn't expecting to fill eleven page-napkins with my
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words tonight. I was planning to do some reading while I was here tonight, but I am out of time and if I could stay, I would keep writing still. It feels so good and right when the words just keep coming. I love this feeling. Like some corner of me has been writing these pages for days now and I just now get to know about them. Beautiful...[later] I'm just glad I picked up a pen tonight; I feel opener in my soul...What better reason to always, always write?
'If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you.'
Henry Rollins
the end."
So, that's all I really have to say about that. Well, not really. I could say a lot more. But your attention span is probably already passing notes in class, so I'll change the subject for the the sake of the general population. But, know that I have acquired a new spine and binding for my writing. It is red and gold and has an interesting skin; its face, the wide open pages, is just as welcoming and waiting as the pink ones ever were. But it is new, and new can be hard. We will see what comes.
Other than this,
prom was yesterday. Or rather, pictures, dinner, and the after-party were yesterday! The dance got re-scheduled to next weekend due to the storms. More details on all of this later, once pictures are available. It was fun, and that's all that needs to be said right now.
Let's end with saying that I feel different these days. Parts of me are coming alive that have been waiting in the wings for an eternity, it seems. I danced at O2 on Friday night, but that was just a public representation of what is being done privately in my own heart. There is so much to say. Maybe I will write again soon. Maybe you could ask me in person! Either way,
My soul finds rest in God alone.
Psalms.
and,
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
All that is within my praise his holy name!
Psalms.
and,
Wherever the Spirit would go, they would go also, traveling in a straight line, turning neither to the right or to the left.
Ezekiel.
Thank you for reading this.
Goodnight.
:)
