An Act of Faith and Courage

I don't exactly know what's going on here, but I find myself wanting to resurrect this blog. And to change it considerably. I'm not going to promise going back through my old journals the way I did when I started out. For the moment that feels way too laborious and way too depressing, to put it bluntly.

I closed my second post back in June saying: "I will just have to see how this goes and how it feels." And it felt, in a word, crappy. So I stopped.

I will confess here that I've recently come very very close to tossing the box and a half of said journals into the recycling truck some Thursday morning. To be done with them once and for all.

Which is to say, to be done with those years of my life once and for all, and to be done with who I was back then (as if that's not still a part of who I am now).

Partly this comes with the desire to really seriously clear out clutter and debris accumulated over the 18 plus years we've lived in this house. I really really really want to start over, to start clean and clear. To start free.

Probing a bit deeper, I have to admit to myself that I also don't really like the thought of anyone else reading these journals some day. I'm afraid there could be things in them that are hurtful to people I love, especially David, Bekah, and Anna. In fact, I'm sure there are.

And, of course, a lot of that stuff in those journals doesn't exactly polish my own public image either.

And that's kind of the crux of the matter--(crux, crucis, Latin for cross. Think crucial, and crucify, and cruciatus curse).

But here's the thing. Even if I were to shred, burn, or dump these journals, if I haven't made peace with the person in them, the person who wrote them, whose agonies, miseries, neuroses and phobias, and, I might add, creativity and cleverness, brilliances and breakthroughs, appear in them again and again, I will still be dragging them around. I won't be free.

It even occurred to me that since most people don't want to hear or read the story of someone whose life has been all smooth sailing, these old journals of mine might really be a gold mine. Not that anyone else wants to read through all those repetitive, self-reflective (self-absorbed?) pages (that's my job, I guess). But here and there in them is just what I might need to really write my story, to write my life, in a way that sings.

If I'm courageous enough and loving enough to do so.

I titled this post "An Act of Faith and Courage." I've just mentioned courage (to look at what I don't particularly like looking at) and love (for my old and new self in my full humanity, and maybe even love for those who might some day gain from this narrative); what about faith? I guess the faith is what got me to start writing this morning. And it ain't no faith I can put words to. 'Cept maybe faith in myself.