Letting it go
Sue taught me that journaling is like taking a walk in the rain--write it down and then let the rain wash it away.
When I moved to Charlotte, NC, in 2006, for a new job, I knew no one there. Being single and traveling every weekend for work created challenges for me to form new friendships. Having no patience for online dating, I put my organizing experience to work. I formed a group on Meetup.com called the “Single Lesbians Dinner Party” (tipping my hat to Judy Chicago), which met on Wednesday evenings once a month at a different restaurant around town. I expected three to five women to show up to the first dinner. Instead, forty-two brave souls ventured out to meet other single lesbians! Sue attended that first event and became a regular after that.
Sue is a natural teacher, mostly by example. As someone with extreme chemical sensitivities, she taught me about scents and other chemicals used in everything from detergent to new cars. I became much more scent-free as a result, a practice that continues to this day. An avid rower, she gave me my first experience with a kayak, both sit-on-top and sit-in varieties. And she showed me how a commitment to walking every day shouldn’t be dependent on the weather.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Sue said on a typical winter’s day in Charlotte - 50 degrees and raining.
“Burr,” I moaned. “It’s cold and wet outside.”
“So?” she responded. And with that, she donned a rain jacket, put on a rain hat, and left the house.
I could either stay inside complaining to myself or join her. I typically joined her and complained anyway, but at least I got a walk in. Can I tell you now that I learned this lesson--that I’m outside walking regardless of the weather? Most assuredly not. But I at least feel an appropriate amount of guilt when I imagine Sue’s unrelenting commitment to walking, and I choose to stay warm (or cool as the case may be) rather than braving the elements. Maybe someday I will take this lesson to heart!
Most significantly, though, Sue taught me a lesson that changed the way I look at my personal writing. As someone who loves to read old journals and diaries of women who lived in other times, I have always viewed journaling as tantamount to keeping an historical record—a practice you do with the intention of keeping it for your entire life, and perhaps something that will live beyond you to become some other woman’s reading 100 years from now. Journaling takes on a different weight when that’s the motivation, however, and might even become more curated or perhaps even less honest. Sue dispensed with all that.
“What are you doing?” I almost shouted when I saw her rip pages out of her journal, wad them up, and throw them in the trash.
“I’m throwing away the pages I wrote yesterday. What are you so upset about?” She asked.
“You’re throwing your journaling away?’ I challenged.
“Yeah, I do it every day,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I write what I’m feeling about something, and then the next day I let it go.” She shrugged. “It’s a spiritual practice for me--the act of writing itself. But I don’t have a need to keep it.”
Her writing is an exercise to Sue, not unlike her other exercises—a walk or a paddle. When it’s over, it’s done and exists only in her memory.
As a result of knowing Sue, I am much freer with my journaling and other personal writing that I used to be. I don’t worry as much about it needing to survive the test of time. My writing is for me, and if it survives me, then future readers will get a much less varnished view of me.
And thanks to Sue, I’ve even thrown some of it away—not because it wasn’t good writing—that wasn’t the point of it. Rather, I’ve let it go so I could be free of it. It’s a way to move on and give whatever I was feeling back to the world where it came from. Maybe someday I’ll dispose of all my old journals. I’m not there yet, but it could happen.
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I love the idea of sometimes throwing it away. I think I would be more open and not worrying about a future reader. BUT I love the idea of letting go too.