journal-01/14/00

01/14/00

The toilet is running again.

I slept in late today. It felt gooood...

Yesterday I woke up at around 7:30 in the morning, confused as to why it was so bright outside. I raised my head up and noticed the cloud-covered sky bleeding into the snow-covered ground.

I jumped out of bed like an excited child, ran downstairs and looked out at the yard in front and back, at the baseball field across the street,
and then I went back to sleep, smiling.

I'm like a little kid when it comes to snow. The inches that landed here in Grafton are the most I've ever seen-- don't forget I'm from Texas. I wanted to build a snowman (my first snowman ever), but the powder was dry. It fell through my hands much like dry sand. I shrugged my shoulders and stomped my feet on the porch before coming back inside to the warmth of my dimly lit bedroom.

There's something about snow that makes me smile. Maybe because it acts as a sort of mute button to all the racket going on in the world, and just for a while, all we hear is silence, peace, and quiet...

People often ask me how I can be "brave" enough to post what I post on this journal. I really have no answer. But then, I get a random email from a random person, like I did today from a guy named James who lives on the other side of the world, and I realize (once again) that when I decided to post my thoughts on the web, I was doing it because I felt like it was the right thing to do at the time to help my growth as a writer.

What I didn't realize at the time was that I was growing as a person, too. And by posting my thoughts for anyone to read, I'm admitting my own honesty, staring myself in the eye and smiling back at what I see.

I have grown so much as a person, as a writer since September 1998 when I first posted. I'd like to think I will continue growing.

I'm also surprised at how many people email me with judgemental remarks about me, my journal entries, or my webpage in general. I do read every message, and I think about what each says. But... this site is posted by me, for me. Not for you. And while I do take into consideration all the responses I get, I'm not going to change the way I feel or think for any person in the world except myself.

This is my story.

Keep those comments coming because I love to read them. Judge my feelings if you want to, but don't expect me to be too concerned about your judgements.

Admittedly it's interesting to see how what I say is interpreted. Someone said about my journal, "I like the inside out view it supplies even if it is distorted by what ever color glasses you may be wearing the day you make the entry." Colored glasses, eh? Well my writing isn't distorted. What's posted here is not polished. It's raw. Some of it comes directly from my leatherbound journals, the ones that nobody reads. Some entries, like this one, I type straight from my little brain. I often post without re-reading. What I post is therefore not distorted from "colored glasses," it's a representation of whatever mood I'm feeling at the moment I decide to post.

I'd also like to point out that if you're a repeat visitor, there's obviously something here that keeps you a'comin' back. That is what truly interests me.

I am an emotional person... I feel a myriad of emotions within the course of one day and I'm not afraid to let you know it (the fact that I have a very expressive face adds to it a bit, I'd say). I used to be more reserved about this but I've realized that there's little point to this because I only become increasingly frustrated and can't understand why nobody knows what I'm feeling. That is seldom the case anymore!

Like I just said, I am an emotional person, and one emotion(?) I've truly learned to trust is my intuition. When I follow my gut feeling, I rarely go wrong. When I tune out that little voice, now that's when I get in trouble!

So tell me, when's the last time your intuition spoke to you? Did you listen?