Getting the train started up again.

Something I always appreciated about Open Diary: I always used it to be brutally honest.

To be able to write for an audience, but be completely unknown by that audience, allows a lot of freedom. A freedom that I have a lost, and a freedom that I think a lot of people feel they have lost.

I honestly think writing in OD gave me my voice. And I think I’ve lost the voice. It’s gone into hibernation. I rarely use it.

I have no time in my life now to just think. Feel. Process. Consider. And then write.

I work mostly.

I’m also a tad bit afraid of feeding into some of my emotions. When I was younger, I would just press into my emotions full bore. Now I’m afraid. Afraid of giving them too much power. Afraid of being judged. I had nothing to lose when I was younger. I liked it that way.

If you really want to know who I am today, it’s probably that phrase. I am afraid. And age 33, I’m just realizing it. Man.

Yeah. There’s something I really like about writing for an audience. Journal entires are to myself. They lack any showmanship or real voice. Often I’m just functionally getting words on the page, for me to make sure I remember any breakthroughs I’ve had. But it’s not art in any way. It’s just…random post-it notes, forgotten, the point never being to make art of it, or to make it pretty or smart or whatever. The point just being…posterity? Some form of processing.

There’s something fun about needing, or wanting, to entertain with your processing, or needing to keep it interesting. Like tap dancing the tragedy of your life story. I like that.

I think…it’s probably also a form of dissociation, which I will write about in a future entry.

I like art. Other than God, I mean art really did save me, and I don’t think I knew the truth of that statement until last week.

The danger of Open Diary is actually to not process at all, and think you have because you wrote about it. One of the plusses of having gone essentially into only journaling mode for the last 9 years is….man, I really haven’t journaled to be pretty. The last 7 years have not been pretty. And I’m kind of glad I didn’t have Open Diary to come to, to make it interesting or fun or personable. The last 7 years have been hell. And I guess I’m kinda glad I had to live it alone, with no audience.

It was not fun. But I know good. It was good.

Gotta be careful. Don’t want to take any steps backward. Do want to learn my voice again.

I also just want to really live a real life. With pain and fear. And not just…writing. I’ve learned that a lot of my art, and the art I consume, has been a way for me to not deal with the pains of this heavy life.

Art also is the only thing that made it safe for me to live before.

I want the real life that I experienced in art, I want that in real life. And I’m ready to hurt for it.

Hi, I’m Jon, and I want to live.