pen to paper

my parents recently moved in with us. they packed up their entire home and all it’s memories and brought everything here. it’s been a process going through boxes and boxes of ME. one thing that i re-discovered about myself is that i was a prolific writer. prolific sounds like such a dramatic word, but i loved to put pen to paper. from an early age and as a shy child, i expressed myself in written form. i wrote (bad) poems and short stories and journal entry after journal entry. i even kept a super private diary with a key that has long been lost. i kept binders of notes from my best friend talking about anything and everything and nothing at all.

in this journey of self-discovery and in my quest for self-care, i’ve learned that i have always cared for myself most by putting pen to paper and purging feelings and thoughts i couldn’t hold in. it’s been life changing to re-read the experiences of my life and process it from where i am today. sometimes you need a reminder of growth and what you have overcome. a reminder of lessons learned that may have been forgotten. a reminder of how much wiser and stronger and more YOU you are now.

once the internet exploded, i put the pen down and started blogging. i have to say i prefer pen to paper than the click clack of keys typing. i wrote daily and compiled a collection of my blog entries into a book. this compilation was published in the mid ’00s sometime. somewhere along the line, my writing became more academic and pointed. less of me and more of an exercise of relaying information rather than feelings. law school does that to you i suppose. i can pinpoint exactly when my journals ended. it was the same time when briefs and law review articles took over. a reprogramming. i was published again in 2011. this time it was a law review article completely void of any of my feelings. just arguments. this blog is literally the very first time i’ve written about my feelings in ten years.

reflecting on this has me thinking about WHAT i could do to reintegrate writing into my life in a more meaningful way. it really does feel like what i was meant to do. write. so…action items. my focus now is to find opportunities to guest post or freelance write. make this blog more of a priority as self-care and as a practice in the thing i love-writing. tonight i will write my younger self a letter with advice, encouragement, and insights. i’m proud of her, and i’m proud of me.