Chicken

Why do you read this?   What is it that makes you read my words?  What makes you read what anyone writes?  Is there a compulsion to feel some kind of connection to that author?  Are you craving a companion in your mania?  Do you read to escape mundane thoughts that keep you from feeling something bigger?  Are you hoping someone else has been able to articulate your feelings?  Do the words of another somehow transcend you away from solitude?

As a child, I read so many books.  Being a child of religion and spirituality, I read the bible and other scripture.  Hours of my youth were spent curled in a ball somewhere just reading something.  There has always been a sense of self-achievement when reading.  My absolute first love was found in text.  I escaped so many things through stories.  As my reading matured, I recognized the deeper passion for reading and what it provided.  Reading was the first way I learned how to connect with people.

Fiction is my preferred area of leisure reading.  I realized something today.  A writer exposes themselves in every syllable of their stories.  Though, the situations they draft aren’t exact replicas of their own experiences, they’re written from a space of awareness.  A timeless statement guiding any budding author is:  write what you know.  I married that guidance to every book I’ve ever written and suddenly, I feel an intimate relationship with each person who has been brave enough to write a book I’ve read.

I have expressed many times the value of keeping a journal.  There have been countless conversations I’ve had with friends about the benefit I’ve been able to cash in on when it comes to documenting my life.  Without fail, everyone says the same thing.  “I am afraid to write down what I’m truly feeling.”  Is it terrifying to express yourself?  Why?  Writing in a journal is for you.  You are not publishing through Random House all the inner most thoughts you’ve had.  It’s for you.  So, I wonder why people are afraid to expose themselves to … themselves?

“What if someone reads it?”  Excellent question.  What if they do?  Evaluate what you’re hiding.  I’m not going to lie.  I have gone back and read my journals many times over the years and have been shocked at how graphic some of my detail has been of my accounts.  At the end of my life, I leave behind memories.  I leave behind impacts.  I hope that I live a life so full of authenticity that a journal will be nothing more than a testament to the person those who read them knew.

One of my favorite quotes came from someone so random.  Ricky Martin said, “I want to be transparent to my children.”  That’s pretty damn brave.  It made me step back and think about what level of transparency I was willing to expose to my children.  As I pondered that, I realized, I was already fairly transparent.  My daughter has probably been able to see more of my levels than my boys, thus far.  Which makes sense, they’re babies.  My daughter is now an adult.  But, I live life unfiltered.  There are areas of appropriateness I certainly attempt to be more conscientious.  For example, I don’t talk about the frustrations I have as a co-parent in front of them.

In this very moment, if something were to happen to me and I were unable to secure my stack of books outlining every gory detail of my life, I am not afraid of what gets read.  Honestly, I hope that I get to sit around in my spirit form and watch the person reading them.  I want to see the tears.  I want to see the shock.  I want to see every genuine reaction to how I describe my perspective of what it took to become me.  I hope at the conclusion of reading my words, that individual nods their head in understanding and have the gaps filled in to round out a full comprehension of who they believed me to be.

Oh my goodness have I failed in so many trials.  Sometimes I have failed with grace.  Often with scuffed knees and broken bones.  I journal those failures so I can see what I did.  Find common denominators and educate myself.  It’s a tool I use to calibrate.  Going through the past perspectives I’ve had, I literally see the tones shift as they mature and gain wisdom.  I absolutely want my children to read that.  I want them to see their mother as a human.  She failed.  She grew.  She did her best.  She was challenged and hurt. 

What do you have to fear when considering being understood?  It’s inaccurate to believe those who write something profound and inspiring just pulled it out of their ass.  Those words came from a space, experience, trial, triumph, or an epiphany born from a culmination of all those things.  A piece of fiction, a blog, a screenplay, an epic novel, or the more obvious autobiography are examples of a journal.  Today, I realized that intensely.  It has changed the way I’m going to read from now on. 

We gain from the exchange of perspectives.  Don’t be selfish with your education.  Teach.  Share.  I would love the opportunity to teach how to journal.