This was a wonderful prompt, and Connor, your story is incredibly relatable. This encouraged me to post in this community, finally for the first time. I look forward to more prompts and engagements!
In my first years of speech I referred to myself as self. “Self, put shoes on! Self, take shoes off!” It seems I understood myself as a distinct person worthy of direct address, to both shape and access through language. When I was gifted my first journal, I think I saw it as a place to grow and know that self. To spend my time decorating the mechanics of my days with my own observations and interpretations, knowable only to me and my self, seemed like a wonderfully infinite and complete existence. Later, my journal became heavy with the churnings of darker, deeper adolescent waters. It also became a solution for insomnia. Unable to slow my spinning mind, I was encouraged to put my thoughts on the page for safe-keeping.
In the last two years, my journal has primarily been a gateway to sleep. Writing myself into a heavy-lidded head nod is a sign of a day, and night, well done. But over the course of that time, I’ve been unable to approach writing, and living, with the oomf of creative enthusiasm. I know that writing myself into oblivion is not the same as writing towards discovery, but only in the last few weeks have I understood that it is actually undermining my ability to discover at all.
For many months now I have felt stuck on the threshold of some attic door separating my self from my joy, liveliness, courage, and inspiration. While I see my stuck self, I also see the boulders I have set up to block my way. They are: Work; Small Disgust with myself for letting Work do that; Lack of loving; Stubborn resistance to loving; Anxiety of having irretrievably lost my intended path; Anxiety of having no intended path, of finding that the world is truly random.
I’ve been hemming, hawing, and hedging in consternation before this attic door for a few weeks, talking to my self about fear, loneliness, and having only one life to live. The conversation has begun to grow stale. It has begun to creep into my journals again, and there, shrunk in scope. By finally putting that kind of language to my experience, I’ve recognized once again my own fundamental truth and salvaged the strength required to tend it - that I need to write my way through.
I love seeing a prompt from a community member, and feeling a shared sense of connection in how writing and journaling are sources of solace and growth for us all. Thank you, Connor!
I love the simplicity, the directness, of this prompt. Thank you, Connor. And to us all.. may we continue to write for ourselves.
This was a wonderful prompt, and Connor, your story is incredibly relatable. This encouraged me to post in this community, finally for the first time. I look forward to more prompts and engagements!
In my first years of speech I referred to myself as self. “Self, put shoes on! Self, take shoes off!” It seems I understood myself as a distinct person worthy of direct address, to both shape and access through language. When I was gifted my first journal, I think I saw it as a place to grow and know that self. To spend my time decorating the mechanics of my days with my own observations and interpretations, knowable only to me and my self, seemed like a wonderfully infinite and complete existence. Later, my journal became heavy with the churnings of darker, deeper adolescent waters. It also became a solution for insomnia. Unable to slow my spinning mind, I was encouraged to put my thoughts on the page for safe-keeping.
In the last two years, my journal has primarily been a gateway to sleep. Writing myself into a heavy-lidded head nod is a sign of a day, and night, well done. But over the course of that time, I’ve been unable to approach writing, and living, with the oomf of creative enthusiasm. I know that writing myself into oblivion is not the same as writing towards discovery, but only in the last few weeks have I understood that it is actually undermining my ability to discover at all.
For many months now I have felt stuck on the threshold of some attic door separating my self from my joy, liveliness, courage, and inspiration. While I see my stuck self, I also see the boulders I have set up to block my way. They are: Work; Small Disgust with myself for letting Work do that; Lack of loving; Stubborn resistance to loving; Anxiety of having irretrievably lost my intended path; Anxiety of having no intended path, of finding that the world is truly random.
I’ve been hemming, hawing, and hedging in consternation before this attic door for a few weeks, talking to my self about fear, loneliness, and having only one life to live. The conversation has begun to grow stale. It has begun to creep into my journals again, and there, shrunk in scope. By finally putting that kind of language to my experience, I’ve recognized once again my own fundamental truth and salvaged the strength required to tend it - that I need to write my way through.
I love seeing a prompt from a community member, and feeling a shared sense of connection in how writing and journaling are sources of solace and growth for us all. Thank you, Connor!
Love this. This is very helpful!
I don’t know about the book club? Is that another membership?