Chapter Two, Paragraph 3

So it has been awhile. I feel like I did when I sat my journal down and didn't pick it up again for a very long time. When I finally opened the pages, it felt odd, no longer like my closest confidant. I felt that I had strayed, that I had committed the ultimate betrayal, and to come crawling back now was just plain hypocritical. To this day, I have not found my muse again in the pages of a journal, and it saddens me. I have a beautiful one, bound in a soft, printed leather, that sits on my bedside table, waiting for that day that I am brave enough to lay those first words.

This, these blog entries, are the closest thing I have to journaling and they are, by necessity, edited for public consumption. One doesn't lay one's soul open for the world to consume with their breakfast coffee (or tea, or protein shake, or energy drink) at their leisure. No matter how much we think we may be opening ourselves, in the back of our minds there is that check and balance that is our neighbor, our co-worker, or our kids. Perhaps even our mate. (Certainly that big, hairy, creepy stalker guy that cruises past the house at 3 a.m. throwing rocks at the window. Especially him.) When I journal, everything superfluous is stripped away until what is left is pure me, laid on the page in a sometimes brutal manner, in a way that I have shared with very few people in my life. It is nothing more, or less, than a reflection of my soul - without thought or concern for what people may think of me. And for some reason, I don't want the world to know me that well. If you know me that well, it means you worked for it.

I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do with the pages and pages of filled journals that sit in a container in my garage. My entire childhood is in that box. My coming of age is in that box, in fact, and we all know just how awkward and turbulent that time is, especially if you happened to go through it as a girl. It worries me, what will happen with my journals if something happens to me. Even 18 years after I last laid ink to paper, I cannot imagine someone reading them. They are funny, naive, sad, incredibly melodramatic, and more than a little embarrassing. Way more. So... what to do with them?

I'm not even sure where that little muse came from. I opened this screen firmly planted in the middle of chapter 2, paragraph 3, with every intention of catching up on the first two paragraphs and here I am waxing philosophical on journal writing. But then I started thinking about how much I've missed writing these past few months, which somehow springboarded into my love of journal writing and, well, here we are.

And in the midst of it all, I've survived a praying-mantis nostril invader, a Vulcan mind meld and a good old-fashioned choke-hold without managing to dump my computer off my lap. Yes, I'm a multi-tasker, but that is another blog entirely...

I'm sorry, the praying-mantis nostril invader still has me a little rattled. It is not a small feat, surviving such a method of torture when it is delivered by 240 pounds of (mostly) pure muscle. In fact, I'd probably jump up and do a little Rocky survivor dance if it weren't for the fact that I'm not sure I have enough energy to even raise my head up from this pillow where it is propped as I type. Thank goodness for good typing instructors. I can stare at the ceiling and be secure in knowing that at least 96% of what I'm typing will be without error.

It has taken me a few months to get here (here meaning this blog here, not this pillow staring at the ceiling here), but I made it. And what a little journey it has been. I do fully intend to get to paragraphs 1 and 2, but I had to start somewhere, didn't I?

Suffice it to say that I am alive, have managed to keep all living creatures in my charge alive (a miracle unto itself), and that somehow, amazingly, we are all muddling through with mostly smiles on our faces. That isn't so bad, I don't think. After all, it is only the beginning of the chapter.