Last week I was looking through old journals. And it's funny. I saw this pattern with my voice. I had a long phase when I was writing journals, but not telling the truth. I wanted to tell the truth, but I just couldn't say it. I couldn't put into words, even for my own eyes, what was honestly happening in my world.
So then my world broke and I had to start over. And my voice had to be reborn as well.
My first journal after The Fall is full of quotes--the voices of others--that expressed what I was experiencing.
This is anger, they told me.
This is fear.
This is sorrow.
This is courage.
This is trust.
This is hope.
And then I started to write, in the voice of a child, about things like my favorite color and my favorite food and childhood memories. Things I was sure of. Facts that I knew.
And I wrote more, and my voice grew up, slowly, explaining to myself what I had known before, and what I knew now, and what it all meant as an integrated whole.
I learned to say: no, I disagree, and I don't like that.
I learned to say: this is what I want, this is what I need, and I can't compromise with the truth.
It was ugly at times and scary almost always, growing from silence to sound.
And now I have this voice. This voice to tell this story.
My voice, and no one else's.
My story, and no one else's.
My freedom, which is a tiny piece of the freedom offered to us all.