Life is a draft…

I’m so grateful for my writing.

What started out as something very basic, just scratches in a journal, has slowly become the way I evaluate my life.

When I look back on my early writing, I see the rawness of it. The innocence. The self deception, yet at the same time I also see the beginnings of someone trying to make sense of everything. Trying to find a way to live inside situations that, in truth, should never have been lived inside.

Over the years my writing has helped me understand why those situations were lived inside at all. It came from looking inward, dissecting experiences, and filling page after page in what has become a never ending story.

My writing life has evolved so much that when I revisit those earlier ramblings, I sometimes think I should rewrite them. But that somehow makes me feel dishonest, so the originals stay exactly as they are. They keep their place chronologically. They are part of my time line, a record of how I actually got to where I have.

Really, they’re just drafts.

And sometimes there are many drafts, each one a little more detailed, a little more honest and a little more aware.

So I return to those familiar themes time and time again. Not to change them, but to update them, because with growth comes a new outlook, a new perspective of the story. One that shows me how to live with old experiences in a healthier way.

And with each update, partial rewrite, my life becomes easier to live inside of.

Sometimes the story feels repetitive, like I’m circling the same old topics. But the reality is, I’m discovering new ways to integrate old hurts with healthy tools. And that changes everything.

Because the person who once lived inside those old stories no longer exists in quite the same way.