It Just Returns In A Stronger Form

I was once in a relationship with a man that, unbeknownst to me until it was too late, liked to snoop through my journals when I wasn't around.

One evening when he picked me up from work, he had my journal with him, much to my extreme surprise.

"You have a lot of stuff about other guys in here," he complained, "And either you get rid of this journal right now, or we're through."

I was very young, insecure, and I thought (I know, I know) that I was in love. He'd already given me a diamond promise ring. I told him I'd go through it and take out the entries that mentioned others. I figured I could do that, since it looked like this was going to be a long-term relationship. I imagined he'd take my word for it, and that would be that. I could remove things at my leisure.

"Do it right now," he told me, "We need to get this behind us."

What I should have been doing 'right then' is smacking the guy over the head for snooping, then giving him the boot. Hindsight.

I sat on the curb and started thumbing through the pages, plucking out one here and one there.

"That's good enough," he said, "Come on!"

At that point I was beginning to stand up for myself, protesting that a lot of the entries in the journal were precious to me; there'd been a lot of growth represented on those lines, a lot of difficult circumstances that I'd gotten through. My pleas didn't phase him. He angrily drove me to a canal and ordered me to dump my journal over the railing and into the water.

I did.


That unhealthy relationship lasted for years. I always knew that the instance at the canal was sick and twisted, and that my acquiescing to a narcissist's demands was inherently the wrong thing to do. I've deeply regretted allowing someone else to censor me on behalf of their own comfort, and whenever anyone else tries to do that currently, it irks me still. Changing your writing for anyone's tastes is, in the long run, never worth it.

The story of my grandmother's writing is the perfect example.

Although I was only six months old when she died, I know a few things about her. I know that people loved her. I know that she used to practically invite their entire small town over for Sunday dinner. I know that she was short, curly-haired, and loved to laugh. When she died at the young age of 54, so many people were heartbroken. The cheerful elfin-like woman with the bright blue eyes and unforgettable laugh was sorely missed.

My grandmother was a journal-keeper. She'd written her heart out in them; she was said to have been a sensitive soul. She had volumes and volumes of her thoughts on paper.

When she passed, my grandfather discovered the journals. For reasons only he could know, he took them and burned every last one. Perhaps there were things therein that incriminated him or others. Perhaps she'd written things about friends or family that were touchy. No one will ever know; the secret died with my grandfather. There's a part of me that's peeved about that; he deprived us of being able to know a woman that only shared the same planet with me for mere months. I could have known her; the good, the bad and the ugly if there was any.

Does anyone have the right to make that call? I suppose there could be arguments for either way. One thing I can tell you; when I knock on the pearly gates, my journals will be in safekeeping with those that I trusted. If that's not someone in the family, then they'll be stored out of the family. My grandchildren and great grandchildren have the right to know where they came from, and who I was. Who I am.

I like to imagine, in a plucky sort of way, that the writer in me comes from Grandma. That even though her thoughts were burned to ashes, she's able to work through me sometimes. The sensitivity. Her thoughts of injustice. Her emotions. I hope she feels rather satisfied that two out of five of her grandchildren turned to writing as both a hobby and a career. More than once I picture her smiling down on me and thinking, "You can't stop the writer in me, no matter how hard you try."

Pearl S. Buck penned it this way:

"Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment."

Like the baby whose cry isn't heard the first time around, she gasps for air, then cries even harder, louder, and with more strength. Self-expression can't be stopped, and it can't be silenced.

It Never Goes Away

I couldn't stop writing.

Because at age fourteen my life wasn't all that great, I designed stories in my 'journal' about one that was much improved. Attentive boyfriends that complimented me. Special awards. Friends that cared. It was all right there in the pages, and cathartic-ally so. My mind needed something happier than my reality.

Unbeknownst to me, my older sister was amusing herself daily by reading the ongoing entries. When she couldn't help but mention the name of my pretend beau on one of her weaker days, it was game over. I couldn't write any more hopeful fiction; the magic of that had faded. Years later when I was keeping some very secretive and truthful journals hidden away, my older sister still brought up my fiction.

Apparently it was good enough to have been memorable.


I rarely delved again into fiction; although I've been known to use the occasional embellishment. What good writer doesn't dress up a sentence whenever they can?

I kept myself busy with long letters to relatives and pen pals, and put my all into papers for school, which brought on a high school teacher's comment to my mother: "She writes very lucidly."

I, not accustomed to using words like 'lucidly', had to look that one up. It means bright, shining, transparent, readily understood, clearheaded and rational. In full disclosure, I looked that up just now as well.

I wrote a lot as a teen, but nothing I'd ever thought to have entered in a writing contest or anything. I was a closet writer, thanks to the incident with my sister's ridicule.

The years sped by and I was married, a young mother, a mother again, and a mother again. In between pregnancies I often worked full time doing various jobs, none of which I loved. I fell into professional cake decorating, daycare providing, scan coordinating, preschool teaching, and then doing the books for a business my husband and I started together. On top of that we built two houses and managed an acreage. Who had time for writing?

Yet the urge to really put my heart into it never went away.

How Did You Become A Writer?

Before anyone even begins to open their mouth to let the words, "So, how did you become a writer?" escape their lips, allow me to offer a warning.

It's a long story.

An interesting story? I think so.

Is it intriguing? Uh, sure, I suppose.

Does it have a good ending? The jury's still out on that one, because my story of writeousness is perpetual.

I discovered the power of words at my friend Yvette's house. Yvette lived in the projects and normally my parents wouldn't have let me sleep over at such a location, but Yvette's mom was attending our church's congregation and looked like a prime candidate for joining, so they allowed it, hoping, I guess, to win points. Yvette's brother Scotty, age 9, knew words I'd never heard before. I asked Yvette what they meant and she grinned and looked away from me, mumbling, "I'll have to tell you sometime later."

When I tried out one of the words in our gentler neighborhood setting, it was as if the world stopped turning. And not in a good way. My previously quiet and shy self had just created an impact like none other I'd been able to make previously. My mother was alerted (Thank you, snotty Kim that lived up the street. You always were a snitch) and steps were taken to assure that I'd not be using that particular verbage again in the future. At least not around snitches, anyway.

All I'll have to do is write the words 'middle child', and you'll get the basic picture. The oldest got the good grades, did her best to please the parents, was always the one winning awards in school and promotions at work. The younger ones were cute and got the attention. I was just sort of there. If I pouted, that might bring the adults around, but not for the long-term. If I tried to stand out, I was told I was showing off.

Here again, when it came to attention, words didn't fail me. No matter how faltering I was at math, science, or social studies, there was often that language teacher who couldn't help but say, "Your daughter seems to have a way with words."

At least I had something to cling to, although I had no idea how that was going to help me in a chaotic houseful of five children, two adults and a dog. I hadn't thought of it until just now; I should have maybe put out a newsletter.

My parents were strict. Unreasonably so, in my opinion. I thought my opinion of the level of strictness might eventually decrease as the years wore on and I got further and further away from childhood, but no. It hasn't. They were strict. Unreasonably so.

When I got poor marks my eighth grade year in mathematics, my father grounded me to my windowless basement level bedroom for the quarter. I could only come out of the room to eat, use the restroom, or shower. Phone calls, tv, and books that weren't textbooks were strictly off limits. Because I couldn't call anyone or receive phone calls, my circle of friends gradually decreased, then faded to a very weak trickle. Fourteen being an awkward age anyway, this was not helpful. School became a pretty lonely place, with no respite because home was that way, too.

I had to have an outlet. I turned to journaling. Writing something down in a notebook looks exactly the same as taking notes, if you've got a textbook out and opened. If my father looked in on me to see if I was hard at it, his eyes met the fact that I was. Hard at writing stories. About sad teenage girls trapped in basement bedrooms that had mean fathers. I wrote several of these novelettes over the course of the quarter, in notebooks that, once filled, I hid in my clothing drawers. And I pulled an A in math, since I wanted to see sunlight again.

Spend a few months in near solitary confinement with no one to express to but a notebook and a pen, and just see what happens. It couldn't help but solidify the writer in me.