Turning Pages
For the past 10 years following the car crash, my relationship with the blank pages of a journal has dramatically changed. In the past, a journal was always a dear friend, close confidant, and a safe haven where I stored secrets and unspoken dreams. A journal was where I could express my most authentic and uncensored self. My anger. Disappointments. Frustrations. Losses. And fantasies like new romantic crushes.
When I first moved to New York City, I scribbled about depressing first dates, unusual subway interactions with strangers and pages upon pages of long evenings spent alone with my journal wishing to bump into Mr. Right.
There are 15 journals in my possession, beginning with a plastic Snoopy diary with a flimsy lock that was a Christmas gift when I was 12 years old. There is a giggling Snoopy on the cover with a thought bubble that reads "Happiness is Having Secrets!” I recall sleeping with this under my pillow to keep its sensational content safe.
Some journals are traditional leather bound. One has a pressed leaf cover with the pages tied together with brown string. Another has pressed flower pages with a velvety paper cover. I found a pink plastic spiral-bound rose notebook that once belonged to my little sister that I found in her bedroom. I brought it home after her funeral and added Dayna's photos and a few writings of my own, like this entry:
Dear Dayna,
It’s taken several months, but you have taught me how to pray again. Thank you for sharing your compassion with me. Only seven months have passed…
Time is crawling without you at my side. Moses misses you. Granny asks for you to visit her dreams. Mom is coming to visit next month and Daddy is coming in two weeks! Only thing missing is you.
Would you come visit me tonight? I love hearing from you… makes me feel crazy and connected.
As I flip through its pink-lined pages, I feel the sharp sting of anguish deep in my gut. It is a painful bridge into a dark time in my life, so I only carefully open the pages at times when I am able to take a deep breath and re-experience her loss. The heart-melting hurt of losing my little sister.
There is another journal that I handle with as much care. One year after we met, I gave my late husband Rich a small black pocket-size journal, and I inscribed the first page:
Dear Rich -
This is to capture your thoughts, song lyrics, euphonies. It is to track your dreams so that they may later be deciphered.
Try to write in this regularly - you will be grateful for its record later. And know that I love you and support you.
Life is full of hidden meanings & blessings. I find I can better understand them once I force them onto a page.
My love,
Angela
PS: I believe '03 has great success in store for you.
The first few pages contain his illegible song lyrics and there are plenty of blank pages in the back that I began to fill with notes from a Scared Abundance class I took at Unity of Blue Ridge.
Most journal entries that were written before July 31, 2008, captured my feelings, emotions and silly observations. Those were from a day when writing was carefree and fun. Those earlier pages became a helpful way to rediscover myself. For some reason, I noticed that when the memory is written in my own handwriting, it could unlock the accompanying images from somewhere deep within. These pictures unfortunately never seemed to correlate with an identifying timeline, but I believed what I was seeing in my mind's eye represented what I had first seen years before.