I found an old journal that I’d forgotten about the other
day buried in a box, hidden out of sight. It held my words and the stories of my life written about 10 years ago all wrapped up in brown textured floral.
If you scratched your finger slowly across its face, it felt like scratchy corduroy. And in it I told a lot of honest lies.
It spoke of the daily challenges and the bigger roadblocks that I was experiencing as we all do. The biggest realization I had in reading my scribbles however was the dishonesty of the words. I wrote trying to preserve my hurt, my pain and often covered it with annoying optimism. (Tweet This)
Before we discard, let’s pause and read between the lines.
If we hold each object that we are tempted to put quickly in the dumpster, what else will we learn?
Because written between the lines of my journal, were the feelings and heartbreak I protected. Glued together with hope, just like the love letters that took months to arrive from across the world, just like the hand-written recipe for Grandma's pie, just like the belief that all would be better, someday.
If you scratched your finger slowly across its face, it felt like scratchy corduroy. And in it I told a lot of honest lies.
It spoke of the daily challenges and the bigger roadblocks that I was experiencing as we all do. The biggest realization I had in reading my scribbles however was the dishonesty of the words. I wrote trying to preserve my hurt, my pain and often covered it with annoying optimism. (Tweet This)
 |
| Honest Lies |
I look back on that period of my life, and know how
difficult it was. How afraid I was. And yet my words did not convey that. I
recognize that the smiling tone I chose, the shining of the light on the less stressful
(more manageable) parts of my day were my strategy in coping. So if someone read these pages years after I'd died, they might think "oh, it was hard but she was just fine". Which really wasn't true.
We may read a lot of articles these days about emptying out
our elderly parent’s homes. Finding this old journal of mine made me pause and think. That surely mixed in with our mother's crystal 3-section pickle dishes and our dad's way-too-small wine glasses we will find some of their written words.
Post-cards and ledgers, love letters and journals.Before we discard, let’s pause and read between the lines.
- Let’s think that when our mothers said that they pickled 50 jars worth of cucumbers, that their feet ached from standing on hard floors. That they wondered if the ration would last until the next summer. Or just that they would get sick and tired of pickles.
- When you read the post-cards between friends, one in the country and the other in town, let's remember that they knew they had to censure their words from prying eyes. But oh how they loved each other.
- That the ledgers with the beautiful handwriting (MacDonald, MacDougal, McDonnell) documented more than just the 25 cent bag of purchased sugar. That sugar was a privilege and that every pie was a masterpiece. That what each slice cost in money, they paid for by doing without something else.
If we hold each object that we are tempted to put quickly in the dumpster, what else will we learn?
Because written between the lines of my journal, were the feelings and heartbreak I protected. Glued together with hope, just like the love letters that took months to arrive from across the world, just like the hand-written recipe for Grandma's pie, just like the belief that all would be better, someday.
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