On Sept. 25, 1993, I sat down on the stairs outside my junior high school and wrote a letter to my closest friends. I began to unravel a bunch of lies as I talked myself into coming out to them. This letter became the first entry in what is now 7000+ pages or journals, spanning the last twenty-five years.
The process of journaling became very therapeutic for me. While at first it was solely about my coming out journey, it soon allowed me to process childhood trauma, heartbreak, relationships, mental health, substance (ab)use, grief, and, finally, it allowed me to accept and embrace joy.
And yes, joy was possibly the hardest thing to accept.
At this silver jubilee moment of journaling, I would invite anyone reading this to find a notebook and begin to write. Life throws a lot of crap our way, and social media keeps us inundated with thousands of voices. The only way to truly drown out all that noise is to disconnect and listen to our own whispers. We know the answers – we just have to give ourselves the time and the trust to hear them.