May 18 | Overhearing Yourself

If you keep a journal long enough to abandon it, you may find that it transforms over time. Like bread rising on the counter, it transforms: where your barely-legible thoughts were overwritten and vented an almost chemical reaction takes place.

You won’t notice at first. The dust continues to slowly layer itself, minding its time, waiting, until one day, the errant thought pushes your hand towards that corner of the shelf and you find yourself staring at something strange.

Where once you second guessed your own thoughts you now just apprehend. A mirror has become a painting. You find beauty, intrigue, the wonderful romance of being surprised by yourself, by your own writing.

It can happen in a flash. The old file on your computer is now distant enough you can listen to your own music with the tender ears of your greatest fan. You finally, for once, have perspective on yourself. You can appreciate what you made without thinking about what it could have been.

Maybe the answer is to appreciate yourself from the start? To back your own creation with the same love and admiration you would afford it in 5 years?

Or maybe the system works as it should? And the only task is to keep writing, keep creating not just for others but for you, leaving conversations for your future self to overhear?… Read the rest