Awhile back, I began writing to my momma. I've never really been good at journaling, so I figured if I tried it in the context of private letters to someone I love and trust most, perhaps it might be easier.
if you were here, i'd talk to you about these things. i'd tell you how i was feeling. i'd love to say i would be completely, one hundred percent honest, but there are some things i don't know that i'd even share with you, momma, as much as i love and trust you. are human beings made to share their souls that way? is that why people go to confession? to purge out the bad and to share it with someone else? what if you purge it and yet you keep feeling the same things over and over? is that insanity? or is that just human nature? to want to share our bad with someone so it doesn't feel so bad? i wonder.
Truth? It really wasn't easier.
As I would write, I would force myself not to rewrite. Not to sugar coat. Not to spell check or grammar check or worry about a reaction. Just who are we when we don't have to worry about what other people think?
i have things to say. things that, if you were alive, i would only tell you. things that are good. things that are not so good. things that i need to share. i guess since you're not here, i'm going to have to do it this way. maybe one day i will share this. maybe one day i can put it out there so that the kids can know my heart. then again, maybe not. maybe only you and God need to know what will come in these pages. maybe that's enough. maybe the simple act of writing, of writing my feelings down, my thoughts, my fears, will be enough. maybe it will allow me to move past where i am right now, which when i'm honest with myself, is stuck. stuck in the past. stuck and afraid to go forward because going forward is going to take some work. i think deep down, i'm afraid how hard that will be. how much it will expose. like how i feel about myself. like what i think - truly - about things. like what i want for my life. for my kids lives. those decisions are hard. they require thought and strength and faith. sometimes i feel like i don't have any of that at all.
I like to read back periodically through what I have written, to see where I was then. What my mood was, how I was feeling. To gauge progress and see how things have changed. Or, more commonly really, how they had not.
i hope that through this process, i can learn to feel, to hope, to heal, to love.
There has been such turmoil and upheaval these past few months, such an uncertain and fearful time. So much unknown. So many decisions to be made. And yet, through all the sadness and through all of that grief, I am struck by the realization that things have indeed, and permanently now, changed.
Perhaps the journaling was a good thing. Perhaps being able to speak, uncensored, even though it went nowhere and I received no feedback except to be able to see my thoughts in the bright light of day, was important. Kind of like therapy but without the other person. Or the expense.
What I am finding though, is that it is through that change, this change in me, in my circumstances, in my entire life - that I believe I am finally learning to... let go. to loose control. to accept responsibility. to forgive. to be strong. to believe in me. to move forward. to feel. to hope. to heal.
And perhaps eventually? Well, perhaps eventually, to love.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
xo,
momo