This is for you

    For some strange reason as I get older I am developing an addiction to journals, I keep buying new ones and then scared to write in them.  However, I'm not much of a writer but I think my subconscious is telling me I need to write.  So for the past couple of years, I've tried just that, writing. But sadly I get upset and frustrated with my writing skills and the content of the subject along with the pain in my hand.

    I will write a few pages then my hand is on fire and I look at the sloppy writing and the subject and I flat out hate it so much that I tear it out and as a result, I ruin the journal.  I've ruined a few in the last couple of years but it wasn't until one day it finally occurred to me what my problem was.  Most of my life I've been criticized for almost everything. Being quiet, shy, awkward, standoffish, negative, complainer, loner, etc. The biggest thing has always been the way I talk and get things off my chest. I never considered myself as complaining or saying my issues were worse than others. I just want to say how I was feeling. But sadly the way it sounds coming out gives everyone the idea I'm complaining.

    So after years of hearing people saying stop complaining and everyone has issues etc. that now when I write and when I read what I wrote that's what I hear. And that's why I always hate what I write.  Until one day I thought to myself "This is for you". And just like that I realized I'm not writing for others or their approval, I'm writing for me.  So that's what I going to start doing.  Going to start using those four words every time I write to remind me it's for me and me alone. If others don't like it that's their problem, not mine.

    Not sure where writing is going to take me, don't think I'll be a famous novelist but I hope to leave behind a few journals for others to see what was going on in my life if they choose to.

This was for me,

Jack