7 May 2025
I’ve been writing since I was seven years old; basically as long as I’ve known how to hold a pencil and form letters with it and put those letters into (often misspelled) words and string those words into semi-coherent sentences.
When people would ask, I would say, “I’ve been journaling since I was twelve” because I knew I was not-quite-thirteen when 9/11 happened and I somehow forgot my diary at home that day so, even though it went against my perfectionist self, I wrote my thoughts on a piece of notebook paper as the teachers of my private school rolled the TV into our classroom “so we don’t scare the little ones”.
But thinking back on that 2001 diary, I knew it wasn’t first. I bought it in what we called a “merit store” with all the “merits” I’d accumulated for overachieving or whatever. My mom was volunteering and since I had the most points I got to go first and mom pointed out the diary because she knew I was “into that sort of thing”.
Recently, I found a box unearthed by Hurricane Harvey that destroyed our town in 2017. This box was in a storage unit my dad built on our property when we moved there in 1999 and it’s where we housed the boxes we’d packed before we moved into a 5th-wheel trailer on the property as they “finished the house”. (Plot twist, it was never fully finished until after the Harvey repairs.) I packed these boxes as a ten-year-old and naturally most things that mattered to me then didn’t hold much worth to me now. Tucked in this box were a few notebooks and diaries—two of them Lisa Frank, thank you—that I had all but forgotten yet instantly recognized. The oldest was from 1995, when I was seven. The entries were scant, the handwriting atrocious, yet the statements were powerful. Somehow I managed to document in my dozen or so entries some of the most momentous occasions of my young life.
Clearly, something in the practice of documenting, of writing, or scratching pen to paper and tucking it away has stuck. I’ve filled countless journals, written on a semi-successful ballet blog over the years I was dancing, had two poems published and many never seen the light of day. Writing is what I do. I don’t know that I’m necessarily any good at it, but how I feel when I’m writing – either on paper or typing up one of these fella’s to shout into the void of the interwebz – is a high I’ll chase for the rest of my life. It simultaneously brings me comfort no one else can give and helps me to feel centered in a way I struggle to explain to anyone who doesn’t also experience this with something. I write because I have to, no matter what ends up happening with those words.
I’ve been debating starting this Substack for a bit. I love the concept of blogging and really enjoyed it when I was documenting my dance adventures. That chapter of my life has all but closed, yet I still feel drawn to this particular form of expression. I just watched a live stream (after the fact) with Glennon Doyle, Abby Wamback, and Amanda Doyle in honor of their book that just released called We Can Do Hard Things and one of the notes I took was of something Glennon said, sort of off handed, that lead into a deeper realization and conversation,
“You will never leave you”.
I don’t know how frequently I’ll post here. What I can tell you is that it’ll likely be a lot of brain dumps (like this) along with random poems every now and again, and probably some pictures occasionally. It’ll have a lot of thoughts and feelings and probably not have any sort of theme other than this is my life and I feel compelled to write about it. I’ve been in therapy a little over a year now with an absolutely incredible therapist and it’s only now that I really feel like I’m beginning to be able to sort through the muck I have surrounded myself with as I have muddled through to survive this life and starting to see the connection to all the deeper parts of me and what they’re trying to tell me – what I can learn from it.
I don’t plan on really advertising this. If you’ve found it, I feel that truly means you were meant to. I hope if you feel compelled to stick around that you feel good about it and maybe have a moment of reflection or two yourself.
Mainly, I hope you’re able to find a way to live your life in a way that feels like home to you.
May we all be so lucky.
This is for you, stranger, person who may know my name but have never had the chance to know me. May this space be the proverbial seat on a train next to a stranger or meet-cute in the grocery store—that interaction you weren’t expecting but leaves you feeling warm inside. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
❤ me
1988- 