Just For Me

I struggle to share things. I know I am not alone. I started this poem with my husband in mind. We have been married for 12 years and only in the last year did I share with him any of my writing. In the middle of writing this poem, I realized it wasn’t just him I hadn’t shared any of my writing with. My family, my closest friends. No other past relationships. But thinking back on it, that was how I liked it. Like I said only very recently did I start sharing with my family and one close friend about anything I’ve written. I am not sure what drove me to finally do so. I guess I finally began to feel like some of what I was writing was…good? I haven’t had many triumphs in life. I graduated high school, married young, and am now a stay-at-home mom of two beautiful children. Maybe I felt like I needed some other kind of recognition.

I’ve been writing and journaling since I can remember. My mom bought me my first tiny little colorful journal in the first grade. I remember being in the cute little gift boutique with her and seeing it beautifully displayed with other blank journals on a table. I picked it up, turned the blank, lined pages, and instantly fell in love. And that was it. From that time on I have been writing in a journal.

And then I made the mistake of throwing them all out. I was at a point in my life where I finally felt good and I felt I needed purging of my past life. Who was I to think that my life was suddenly so perfect that I was too good for what I had been through? Maybe I am being a bit dramatic. Anyway, take it from me, if you are a journal writer, do NOT do what I did. No matter what happens in your life, do NOT throw anything you have ever written away. As I said, I haven’t had many triumphs in life. But when I think about what I have been through, I now consider everything I have overcome a tried and true triumph. It took me a long time to get here, and now all of my beautiful, dramatic, and certainly valid written recollections of that life are long gone. I can’t stress it enough, do not throw anything away. No matter where you are in life. Unless you must get rid of incriminating evidence of some sort, then, by all means, burn it.

Despite my long-lost journals, I have since then started new ones. I remember being newly married, still a little in shock that this was now my new life. I wanted to start writing again. Though life got in the way — a lot. A big move, a new job, a miscarriage, a successful pregnancy, a new baby, motherhood, another new job, marriage, another big move, a pandemic, another new baby, motherhood, leaving said job, marriage, a pandemic…did I mention motherhood and marriage…and a pandemic?

I may have gotten off subject. I like to share things now. A few years ago I found poetry (again, like many other things I lost whenever life happened), and then I started really writing again. I branched away from mere journaling to full-on sharing my innermost deepest self written down in these poems when I found Vocal and Medium. Still, when it comes to sharing any of what I’ve written with actual people that I personally know, I struggle. I am thankful for finding these platforms, where I can share freely with other writers. And the strangers who come across what I have to say, whether they agree with it, like it, love it, hate it, relate to it — whatever it makes them feel, I relish in the fact that…I shared something.