Throwing away the bobby pin

“Let’s start something!” exclaimed a friend of mine over coffee.

Start something? I thought… I haven’t thought about starting something in ages. I work a combined 50 hours across three jobs on a light week, I’m still settling in to a new city, and I’m pretty committed to my eight hours of sleep per night. Life is trucking along, but in no way is anything new happening. It’s enough to keep up with the old!

At least that’s what I told myself.

Yet, here I am. Starting something.

I’ve been a writer for as long as I could physically write. My first journal was one of those small faux-leather bound books with gold lettering that said “My Diary” on the front and had a tiny gold lock that I could open with a tiny gold key, that is until I lost said tiny gold key. After that, any old bobby pin or paperclip did the trick. That first small book is filled with barely legible scribbling, that would likely be baffling even to the intrepid reader who endeavored to decipher the words.

I remember lying on my stomach on my bedroom carpet writing out my musings to my little book. Deep truths like, “I think I LOVE ANDREW!” came pouring from the depths of my young soul. I would close my diary, turn a paperclip in its gold lock and feel a strong sense of well-being. Yes, I have spoken truth. The world is okay with me today, I would think.

Now, not much has changed. My journals are more legible, yes, though perhaps not more coherent. I still lay on my stomach and write my heart out on good days and bad. I still am occasionally over-dramatic or miss the layered meaning of my own words. And I still experience writing as a deeply life-giving act.  

So starting this blog is, in one sense, nothing new. It is, however, opening up my writing to others and asking that this experience be somehow less solitary and more communal. It is throwing away my bobby pin and opening up my journal to whoever cares enough to read it.

Thank you for joining me. May you find something here that blesses you as much as it blesses me to write it.