Week 33/Day 7 A New Year of Sorts

Today I turned 51. I've had a very easy day of it, truly I have. It's suited me perfectly to rest and read. What am I reading? I am stuck on reading a blog from first post to the most recent. I am enthralled in the life of a girl who has more opportunities and heartaches than the average soul. I am caught up in the drama and trauma of a life not mine. Mind you I am not jealous. I know just why she blogs. I know why I blog. I am almost certain the reasons are the same. Her blog is wildly popular and why not? Her life is like the best/worst of things, a sort of Truman reality show that fascinates.

So why do I blog? Penny Ann was my writing exercise, my opportunity to hone the craft of writing and at the same time to be both a mentor to myself and to others who might not have the same knowledge of frugal homemaking that I've had. Blogging there kept me accountable, put me on my toes frugally speaking.

Blogging here is more about who I am aside from the part of me that is most definitely Penny Ann. The point was to be 'real'. What I've discovered is that in the blogging world, even with few readers, it's best to keep a certain amount of our lives private. The same thing that is true of spoken words is true of the written word. Say what you like, words can hurt and wound and do damage. Even if the forum in which you use them allows you to return and edit out the hurtful things, damage can still be done. I've found that I can't be as real as I'd like. There are things I'd like to say, thoughts I'd like to write out, but simply can't. There are things best left to journals. Secrets best not told anywhere except in confessions between God and I.

There are things I've shared that I sometimes wish I hadn't. I come across whiny and complaining and sounding petty. There are relationships I've written about that I feel disloyal for sharing and yet I share anyway, because I know that it's unlikely anyone in my family will read or report and others that I'd like to write out my angst about but don't dare and I am a little angry that I am imprisoned.

Writing is my solace, my way of letting off steam. I formerly used a journal. And now I think I'll return to that form of writing because frankly blogging isn't sufficient.

I didn't keep a journal until I was 13 years old. I began my journal and writing poetry at the same time. Writing saved me, it truly did. But I was hindered. You see, my parents thought absolutely nothing of invading my privacy and reading my journal. Fine, I understand that parents might do so in order to try and figure out what is going in their child's life, especially at that stage when you're a pre-teen and beginning to separate yourself from childhood. The trouble was that my parents quoted back whole passages of my journal at the dinner table, often in front of guests and harangued me about opinions, thoughts and dreams they thought were rebellious, undesirable or which misrepresented themselves in some way. I learned to get very clever about writing my real thoughts out in poems they couldn't interpret nor comprehend. And I learned to hide my journal in largely inacessible places that took some doing to get into.

When I married I was relieved to finally have my thoughts to myself, or so I thought. It didn't take long to discover that my husband was of my parents ilk. Quoting lines back to me at the dinner table no less. Accusing me of myriad things that he'd determined based on his own thougth processes and interpretation of what I wrote. Back to hiding for me.

It wasn't until after my divorce that I finally felt I could write in complete freedom. By this time however, my life was a shambles. Writing was too painful. Cursory entries only were made. And then I met the love of my life. Too tired from love and baby and children and job to write. I realized that I didn't quite trust this man to allow me the freedom to journal, to have private thoughts.

It took a little while to allow the full flow of my hurts/angers/distrust/resentments/angsts to flow onto the page. It was sooooo cathartic. Sometimes the pages got ugly ugly. Sometimes the pain was so great that I was too horrified by the rawness to read it. My husband proved trustworthy. My private thoughts remained private and secret, but I eventually found it necessary to destroy several years of those journals. There was too much pain, too much hurt and I was too ready to be over it all and move on with my life.

And then there came newsletters and blogs and I finally got a little tired of writing, so that I seldom broke out the journal at all. My current journal might see an entry once a month or six weeks.

This week, reading the messiness of the blogger's life that I've found so enthralling, I've missed my journaling. I've missed the opportunity to be naked on the page, letting it all hang out, reporting the things that thrilled me beyond words, that hurt me beyond measure, thoughts that might be unworthy but which floated through my brain. Sloughing off of little resentments and big. I've missed the opportunity to be myself.

So why did I begin writing here in the first place? Because I wanted pretty much what we all want. I wanted to find out if others felt they way I sometimes do. I wanted to know that I wasn't alone in this world, as a frustrated writer, as a wife, as a daughter, as a woman with sometimes difficult personal relationships, as a dreamer. And you know what? I'm not. There are so many of us out here that it's important to acknowledge we are there for one another. But it's not enough at the same time.

All that to say this. I miss journaling. It's a more personal forum than blogging. And I need it. I need to write poetry once more. I need to return to my writing roots once again. I am not giving up blogging. Not here nor at Penny Ann. I am still inspired. This is just a further inspiration and one that I needed to figure out, which is what happened today on my way through a fellow blogger's ups and downs.

I did get my closet cleared out and organized. Step 2 is figuring out how to make it pretty as well as functional.

If I can get time tomorrow I'll share some of the things that are inspiring me this month, courtesy a stack of old Victoria magazines.