Beginnings are awkward.
Maybe there's no good way to start dumping your thoughts on a blank canvas. Especially when someone - one day - may end up reading them.
I thought it would help me to look closely at my journaling “routine”. Except I don’t have one, never have.
In fact, up until a year ago, it didn’t even cross my mind that it would be worth it joting down my thoughts, my feelings, my very sudden and frequent epiphanies.
Now, I only rush to grab to my journal when these moments strike, when feelings and thoughts bottle up inside and it feels like they could burst out of me any second. If that sounds pretty violent, trust me, it is.
If I’m being totally honest with myself, I also started documenting these things out of fear I might forget them. I’m not yet at an age where memory loss is imminent, but I feel like I can’t afford to lose anything.
To use a rather unfortunate analogy (you’ll see I’m a big fan of these), each important moment or epiphany I document through writing is like the layer of an onion. I call it unfortunate cause I hate onions. 🥲
Each layer I peel off takes me closer to the core. My core. It stinks and it makes me cry (as onions do) but it works.
The upside is, at least the way I choose to look at it, is that unlike an onion, I will never run out of layers. That may sound sad or unproductive… doesn’t everyone want to get to a finish line, draw some conclusions and just move on?
Well, in this particular case, I don’t. I like the process. Maybe that makes me a masochist, or maybe it’s the thing that keeps me going.
Anyway.
One thing to know about me is that sometimes it takes me a while to get to the point. Not the most helpful trait in a world that has run out of patience and always wants to get somewhere fast.
But I endure, adapt and keep my really long rants for people who really care to listen or… for this blank canvas that I’m filling in now.
By now, you might be starting to get why I settled on “The Year of Observance” as a name for this space. Could’ve said years, but… it didn’t quite roll off the tongue as this one does. 😅
It’s also closer to the truth. The place I’m at right now might have been years in the making, but I was never as intentional and passionate about it as I’ve been over the past year.
And before you start thinking I’m a narcissist, I’m not just observing myself, though I admit that is a big part of it. I’ve also gotten better (or at least more focused) at observing people around me.
I’ve always loved to engage in the occasional people-watching (in a non-creepy way, I hope). It relaxes me, takes me out of my own head (a most welcome interruption) and it allows me to learn about other people. How they act, why they act, how they connect, what they show and hide…
Everyone’s got their own formulas for these things, based on previous experiences. What they were taught (directly or indirectly) was okay to feel, think, say, do.
We’re all the sum total of the lessons we picked up over the years, from our parents, friends, significant others and/or any people who mattered to us in the course of our lifetime.
Before I go off on another tangent and get all philosophical, I think it’s time to wrap this up for now.
Damn, endings are awkward too.