Writing again: The Book of alchemy: A creative practice for an inspired life.

When I was a kid and all through my young adult life, I kept a journal. It was a place where I wrote out my deepest thoughts and fears, my musings and any gossip I couldn't keep to myself. It was the place where I could be my most vulnerable self, I wrote almost every day until something terrible happened.

My last semester of college, I was living with my best friend and hanging out with our two best guy friends. At the time, it was pretty clear than none of us would ever hook up. One of the guys was gay and while the other one carried a torch for my friend, she had clearly put him in the "friend zone". We went out together, saw movies and shows and volunteered at our local church. We were inseparable, mostly.

Time passed. I graduated and moved into an apartment alone. But when my best friend got a job in Austin a few years later we decided to move back in together. I had recently been dumped, while surprisingly she had just started dating Mr."FriendZone". I was pretty dumbfounded. From my perspective she seemed to mostly love him as a friend and be enamored with his family (her's was kind of a mess to be honest) and I could not understand why she had suddenly come to believe he was the one for her. From my perspective the four of us were still just a group of friends hanging out. so when Mr. "FriendZone" had an extra ticket to see a show I wanted to see, I of course accepted his offer.

I know this is a long set up to discuss what happened to shut down my journalling for so many years. A few weeks after our "date", my roommate confessed that she had read my journal, not only that but she had taken what I had written (my thoughts about her and Mr. FriendZone) and shared it with our mentor and Mr. FriendZone's mom. I felt sick, I feel a little sick even now more than 30 years later thinking about that betrayal. It was made all the worse when a year later when they got married and I was immediately cut out of our friend group and set adrift.

It wasn't until many years later that I could draw the connection between this injury and my fear of putting down any thought that might "get me in trouble" - While I have tried many times to get back into writing, this fear has always stood in my way. In the meantime, I have authored a dissertation and a text books, articles for publication and for this little blog but not until I picked up The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jauoad. This brilliant volume (and many years of therapy TBH) has got me writing again. Filling the pages with left handed writing or musings about my childhood home. Today I wrote about taking the time to pick up pennies, I gathered my little sequined box filled with pennies I have crushed at every monument and museum I have visited and wrote about some of the feelings they evoked.

What a joy it is to write down my deepest, thoughts, feelings and fears without worry, fear or shame.

FYI: I was totally wrong about Mr. and Mrs. FriendZone, as far as I know they are happily married to this day.