2008-02-4
Preserving Sanity
Recovering from illness left my little girls tired and grumpy. They took long, quiet naps, but upon awakening one or the other cried incessantly. After a week of toddler meltdowns, I had one myself. Uncontrollable wailing tends to wake children, so I grabbed my journal and wrote page after page of incoherent sentences. Allowing my thoughts to ramble gave me needed perspective. I learned this method of preserving my sanity a number of years ago.
In high school my English teacher introduced stream of consciousness writing. It was hard for a type-A personality like me to write whatever came to mind, but I did it, and, if I remember correctly, even enjoyed it. Mrs. E. also required us to keep a journal that year. She encouraged me to keep inventing words like “slunched” and gave pithy advice such as “follow your heart.” Telling me to follow my heart may not have been wise back then, but I did discover that writing helped process my turbulent emotions. As the years passed, I recorded more of my thoughts and prayers. Scraps of paper turned into journals overflowing with moments of my life.
The amount of writing tapered off with the birth of children. It took me four years to fill my last covered notebook. Yet even in the sparse records I see answered prayers, I remember fun surprises, and I realize how these years are slipping away.
Yes, the years are slipping away, but I flail as drowning in the arduous moments. The moments I want to scream, or run away, or hide. These trying times are part of life, so they have a place in my motley stack of handwritten books as well. Looking back in twenty years, I’ll smile knowing the value that transcends the seeming futility. Love is never in vain.
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