I've kept a journal since I was 18. Maybe even younger. It usually takes me almost two years to complete a journal.
My current one has only two empty pages left.
I started it January 13th of this year.
Only 8 months ago.
That's how much life I've lived: 2 years of life squished into only 8 months.
That's how much emotion I've felt and processed: 2 years of emotion squished into only 8 months.
According to my journal, exactly 8 months ago I realized my 4-year relationship was over and started on a path of insanity.
I left our shared apartment with my backpack and my cat to live in the healing womb of the Leschi before heading off on a 5-month flight throughout the West Coast. I didn't know then that when my flight landed, I would call a completely new city: home.
I purged as many material items as I could without going insane. I charmed the Leschi ladies & gentleman into adopting my cat for the equivalent of 10 long kitty years.
I stashed anything I couldn't carry with me into three different homes around Seattle.
As soon as my stuff was scattered, so became my life.
I think I'm actually a scattered person. My brain jumps all over the place, in the midst of sentences and thirds of the way through stories. Its hard for me to catch up to my brain sometimes.
I think that in the past, as I grew and changed, I realized this about myself and so built structure in order to live a productive and happy life. Having that structure has allowed me to focus and accomplish things with amazing quality, even with a million things happening at once.
Without that structure, I'm not myself.
Or maybe I am my true self, undisciplined.
As my true self, undisciplined, I don't communicate well.
I was very selfish in the last 8 months.
I've been learning to be selfish.
I've learned that I am selfish.
I've learned that its ok to be selfish, at times.
At times, you have to be.
I've learned that its ok, though rather uncomfortable, to be disorganized.
At times, things just are.
But the combination of the two, for me, are not a good match.
Disorganized and selfish, I make bad decisions;
or rather, I ignore good decisions.
My body has suffered,
My heart has suffered.
My cat and my friends have suffered.
My lovers have suffered.
My family has suffered.
All in the wake of my growth path.
There is no wrong or right. Only action and consequence.
And learning and growth can be very painful.
Are very painful.
If you've ever thought someone was an asshole, well,
maybe they are just growing.
Two days ago, I finally gathered the last of my few scattered material items into my new home.
I actually have a bed and a bed frame for good nights of sleep,
walls to hang my pictures,
windows to view the world through
and a kitchen to create food that will nourish me.
Hell, my bedroom even has surround sound.
I have structure.
(I breathe a sigh of relief, and feel the words flowing, not flooding, from mind to pen)
After filling the last two empty pages of the current one, I will begin a new journal,
Open the glowing door of a new life path.
What will I take with me?
What, of myself, will I leave behind?
