this quiet life.

For as long as I can remember I have kept journals. They are a mish-mash of random quotes, drawings, song lyrics, set lists, poems and of course; my thoughts. I have always marked each entry, no matter how minimal, with date and time.

To me, the time and place something was said is as important as the fact that it was said at all.

The journals are scattered through out my life. With my cookbooks, in my night stand, with my art supplies. I seem to subconsciously stash them places to surprise and delight my future self.

At least that is what I tell myself so I don't feel as scattered and disorganized as I know I am.

I came across a few of them this afternoon and started reading.

At first I was struck by how incredibly hormonal and over dramatic my teen aged self was. I found myself thinking..."sister, get over it already...there is much worse to come..."

Then I was amused at my early twenties self and the over whelming amount of drug induced entries. Almost everyone of them a ramble of whatever concert I had been to that day, or what show I was going to that night....This was 1996, the summer I was 22. Just before I lost my mother.

Things change after that. I write less and less and almost everything is drawings. I have to admit some of them are pretty good and I can see why I wanted to go to art school.

The pages are littered with quotes from my friends, professors and TV. Nothing too telling of myself.

The journals fall off in 2003. I had graduated from college and moved home. In fact the very last entry was June 7th, 11:23 am.
My birthday.
...and the night I first noticed Spouse as more than a friend.

I have never written in a journal again.

I stopped drawing. I stopped recording my inane thoughts and dreams.

I am wondering if that is because they were finally met?

Or if it is because I finally have another person outside my head to talk to?

Or if by blogging and emailing I am able to fill that need; complete with time stamp....

I looked back at the journals and missed myself. I missed the constant stream of energy that was me. To go, to create, to meet, to grow. To constantly be moving. A flutter. A sparkle. To move so quickly that none of it meant anything.

To move quickly, because if I stopped. I would crumple and fall apart.

Spouse ran after me. He matched my pace and took my hand. He gradually brought me down. He distracted, he settled, he soothed.

He caught me when my body finally gave out from all of the years of running.

Now in this quiet life I find I am waking up again. The need to go and create fueled by the life I wish to lead for my daughter.

So I can not just show her who I was.

But who I am.