I bought four, maybe five, journals in 2021-one month in 2021 to be exact. I went to Books-A-Million and spent entirely too long trying to find just the right journal-a journal for my grief. This wasn't for fun so why did I so painstakingly take my time to pick them out? I filled up exactly none of those. Most don't have a single word scribbled in them. I wanted a journal for the dreams I was having. I wanted a journal for my breakup. I wanted a journal for other struggles-a burn book if you will-meant for no one else's eyes. I wanted a journal for my grief. I wanted to be able to look back-to reach back-and be able to share with someone when they needed it. I wanted it to be raw and vulnerable. But I didn't want the specifics of my grief to be bogged down with feelings about my ex or anything else. Some things I still wanted to keep private and respect the privacy of others. I did sit and journal at times. Pen to paper...ahhh the good ol' days. But there was a problem.
I could NOT keep up. My mind was spinning faster than ever before. I literally could not get a thought to paper without five more jumping in. I tried to explain it to people. It cannot be explained. I have tried and tried to find the visual that expresses what was going on. The urgency of every moment. I cannot find it. I've come up with a wheel spinning faster and faster about to fall loose but gaining more and more speed. And that's not fast enough. Speed up and you see it dig in even more. Rickety and smoke flying. Sparks. It is chaos. It is disorienting. But you look up and nothing has moved. I wrote until my fingers cramped. I really tried to get it on paper. I finally resigned myself to the notes section on my phone. It was always with me. Most nights I would type furiously, trying so hard to get it all down. I could see the images in my head. Had it been pen to paper I could imagine it depicted on screen. Hunched over a desk, moving faster than was possible. Turning pages, crossing out, ripping holes right through. If it was a typewriter, I'd be slamming that thing setting a new record for the speed of "ding, ding, ding." My hair would start to fall from its lazy bun. I'd have to blow hairs out of my face. I didn't want to miss any of it. I knew there would be a time when it wouldn't be as fresh, just a little hazy. I would lose the purity, the rawness, the depth. I would lose that unedited feeling. I had to get it down. I had to get it out of my head to stop the spinning, the spiraling, the obsessing. I had to get it out to one day remember. I had to get it out for posterity's sake. I. HAD. TO. GET. IT. OUT.
I read online about grief and had a few people open up to me. These people were the real MVPs, keeping me connected just enough that I didn't lose my grip-that I didn't succumb to the rocky ground underfoot and wind up in an inescapable hole. I had to get this right. If I woke up in the middle of the night, I wrote it down. Before I went to bed, I wrote it down. The nights were the worst. Week one was the worst. The entire month of September was the worst. October was a close second. Thank goodness a guy from middle school reached out to me with a fairly simple message-He asked me to reach out if I wanted recommendations of songs that helped get him through his grief or anything else. I did. I felt like I had tried to connect with some people closer to me and my attempts found no one. I was losing all connection. Don't get me wrong, my family was there- grieving as well, and some friends reached out. At night, though, I never felt so alone. But this guy provided a safe space during the absolute worst pain of it all to journal and helped me feel a little less alone long enough for the intensity to subside ever so briefly. I did not get down even half of what I was experiencing or feeling. But I tried and I tried and I am trying.
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