Bittersweet

I've been keeping a journal consistently for thirteen years, and every so often I go back and read bits from different years. Most of the time it is just too painful, and I wonder why I am even saving them. The entries are filled with pain - pain that I have either successfully dealt with and moved on from, or pain that I have buried deep in the ground of my subconscious self. Either way, reliving the words I have put down on paper is usually just too depressing to do. But I do stumble upon beautiful thoughts too, truths, observations, and honesty I have long-since forgotten how to practice. Then I remember that I keep them because I learn something each time I read an entry. I can learn about life from my old entries the same way I learn from the people I meet in my everyday life. Sometimes what I learn is just as painful as the entry is to read, but it's worthwhile to have a revelation, even if it's something as small as realizing I have not fully put certain parts of my past to rest. It's like, whoops, I buried that one while it was still alive.

Anways, I was reading an entry from something I wrote back in 2009, and I was trying to tell myself what I thought God would tell me to comfort me, and it was so very touching to me last night. At the time I wrote it it was just an outpouring of myself, but now it is a reminder to keep believing in these things:

"So long ago, it was so beautiful. You will find that beauty again. You don't need to live in the past to feel beauty. You don't need to live inside of yourself to feel beauty. It is safe to come out. You have a God who is protecting you. Your grief has made you regal. Your grief has made you elegant and wise. You are as deep as the wind, as bright as rebirth. Your privilege, because of the hurt you have known, is to feel the world more, and all if its intensities. The trivial things fade away. Blessings like ribbons dance in the air. Even when you hurt, know that it is a part of life. When you cry, know that it is a blessing to be alive. You will cry more. But you will be okay. You will make it. Your heart, like a butterfly, will guide you to the valley of dreams. You will encounter things that are not fair. But they will make you deep, deep as the sky, deep as always and forever."

These are things I have learned since then, but it's just so cool to see that I wanted to believe them but didn't know how at that time. My posts won't always be so personal, but I think it's important to share and be honest when you can.

Photo taken around the same time I wrote the journal entry - with my dad's manual camera.