I recently have spent time with someone that journals everyday. Everyday she wakes, gets ready for her day, makes her tea (an electric kettle and she's not even from the UK) and then sets a timer for a half hour and writes. Writes whatever crosses her mind. Sometimes profound, sometimes absurd, sometimes important, sometimes trivial, but always what is in her mind and what she needs to get out to feel grounded.
She didn't use the term grounded but I've known her a while now and that's the impression I get that her regular journaling does for her. It lets the things swirling beneath the surface or screaming right at the forefront of her mind have their say. Sometimes she comes to revelations, sometimes she plans out her life for the next year, sometimes it's a grocery list. But it's an outlet. And it's a teaching tool. I'm not entirely sure which one I envy more.
I meet with this person every morning and we write. Separately on our own thing, but on a schedule that keeps us committed. I try to dive into my story, struggling to top 300 words in those thirty minutes while she churns out well over 1k every day in her journal. The ability to let those words freely flow like a maple tree being tapped in the spring is...not me. But I want it to be me. I want to be able to write without that break constantly applied. I want the mind thought connection to come without the stutter, the second guessing, the blanking out that assumes that what I was going to think or say or do can't possibly be the right thing.
Ok, in practice double checking on something, maybe any one thing isn't a bad thing but when you do it on EVERYTHING, gah, life is weary. That's what I guess my first goal in this blog is, to learn to stop choking every thought and impulse I have. To train myself to allow my conscious or unconscious mind to flow in a more natural manner.
I blame multitasking. Sometimes I wonder if I should be on adderall; my attention span is significantly limited. I can't seem to stop myself from flipping channels or checking the news feed every hour or hopping from tweet to tweet, only absorbing enough for little sixty second bursts. Not always, but too often. I have to work to focus and that for me is an unnatural state. I've referred to myself as a bookworm for decades but in recent years i can't seem to read new things without a half hour into it my attention wandering off. Or worse. Do you have any idea the number I've bonked myself on the head with my tablet? That's what happens when you fall asleep while still holding it.
I can't be sure yet, but I feel like there is a strong connection between the two. If my attention is really engaged then reading keeps me awake. And it still does on the more frivolous things but I want to be a deeper person. I want to go back to that bright mind that gobbled up knowledge because it was knowledge, that was interested because understanding is more exciting than anything else in the world.
So here I am. Starting something new. Something that I hope will be more than a place to rant. I'm still pretty great about ranting. But I think I've forgotten how to dream. Or at least, I've gotten too good at chocking off those dreams before they fully form. So this is me giving the dreams and the rants a new place to go. It's me trying to get out the way of myself. And it's me being just a bit competitive because someday I want to be able to sit down, set that time to a half hour and lay down a thousand words with no more difficulty than breathing. The words are there whether I give them a place to go or not. They need to go somewhere.
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