Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Journaling

Tonight I pulled out my old journal from college. I started it in October of 1980, and it goes on and off until December of 1984. I am struck by how many times I wrote of feeling different, of not quite fitting in and not knowing why.

My long term goals were outlined, I wanted to be an actor or a journalist. I wanted to make a mark in the world, I even knew and wrote that I had to stop caring so much about what other people thought, especially my father.

Over and over I write of a longing, a deep unknown longing that cannot be filled. At one point I became very, very religious. I don't mean spiritual, I mean get in your face, you sinner, religious. While I have never stopped believing in God, I finally realized He wanted no more of that kind of worship, than people wanted to hear my fire and brimstone lectures.

Again and again I write of confusion, unhappiness and longing.
I wrote lots of poetry, mostly like this one:


I hear a bird call out in the evening.
It cries, endlessly calling it's mate.
Yet rarely do I hear a reply.
Gently I weep, though, not for the bird
But because my own song goes unheard.
And my cries softly die in the cool evening breeze,
unheard, unanswered and almost unspoken.

I never became an actor or a journalist. I make more plans and goals, I drift, I drink, I do drugs and I long. For what? Anything, someone, anything but I didn't know what or how to express it. I marry, I decide to join the Jones'. What is glaring to me now is how much I didn't write of those days. Not even in my private journal will I confess I have a huge crush on my roommate Cori. But I sure wrote how excited I was when we got an apartment together. How much fun it was to decorate it together, to cook for each other, to party together. I didn't write of the pain when she moved in with her boyfriend a year and a half later, only that I needed to get another roommate to help with expenses.

The journal ended December 7, 1982 (really!) LOL, significant? The last entry: I am just a pretender in the world of intellectuality. That wasn't all I was pretending.

Had I kept a journal for the next 24 years, it would have read much the same, I would have noted my marriage, my questioning it 2 months later, was I was crazy? and what did I do? I'd have written of the absolute joy at the birth of my first son, again of my second. The years after that would have been about them, what we did together and how much I love them.

In 2004 I'd have begun writing about my feelings of loving women, to love a woman, to be honest finally. I'd have written of my first experience with a woman and how I knew, I really knew I was a lesbian (oh but maybe, just maybe bi) and there was no going back. I started to like myself and accept myself and I stopped believing the lies people tell you to keep you down.

There would have been an entry for September 18, 2006

I think I have just fallen completely in love for the first time in my life, she lives 2500 miles away! Oh God what do I do now?

That one was easy, because loving Lorrie is the easiest thing I have ever done, and feeling her love and loving loving her is all there ever needs to be.

True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations; it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart.
-Honore de Balzac
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