Personal Journal

Seeing My Reflections

Good lord, I wonder why I post those things where other people can read them.
It’s about learning.
The various parts that make up the whole can engage in total war within. These fears, these thoughts, these accusations, they make me hurt.
Writing it all down in a sort of epiphany puts the drama down, and enables me to objectify it. When it’s on paper, when I can look over it from the outside, I can let myself learn from myself.

One day, about halfway through my therapy, I went straight from the psychologist’s office to my masseuse. I don’t remember now what had gone on in the shrink’s office that day, but near the end of my massage, I remember having the thought that I was at war with myself, and I needed to make the fighting stop. Strangely, there on my stomach, naked on the table, I started to cry. My masseuse, who was quite a strong woman spiritually, though I didn’t know her too well, just kept doing her work, and set some tissue where I could see them. It was rather a special moment in my life, where a near-stranger let me be me, making no attempt to comfort or question. She just carried on, and I had my tears, and we never said a word.

I believe that I have to exorcise to exercise. I’m not bad at being real with myself, despite the discomfort. I am bad at sharing myself… let me rephrase that. I’m bad at being myself in the presence of others. If I throw out the journals in which I battle these demons (not to aggrandize them, but it’s a common enough term) into a public place, I think I’m doing the right thing in admitting I am who I am, and more importantly, I am learning to be myself in this public place.

Until I quit worrying what YOU (the reader) think, I can’t be honest with myself about the value of any of my writing work. Am I trying to shock people? No, not at all, I’m all too embarassed to look back on my previous entry and admit that it really captures my internal dialogue – my true thought process. I don’t even want feedback on it, not reassurances. I want to see how I react. I want to know that I’m not going to apologize (to readers). I want to know that I can look myself in the mirror and not be afraid to come back here again.

I’m measuring myself in my own eyes. Can you write… can you let the products of your own mind stand in front of others, and claim them as yours. Can I focus on the process enough that I can accept the result, whether it’s good or bad, so that I can continue on to further steps in the process. Who is going to lead me in this process? Me, or my feedback?


It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn