I'm being moved to blog. I've been hesitant to blog without reservation. I have all these thoughts going through my mind and for the longest time I thought: no one will care. But as it stands right now, I'm the only one who even reads this, and I care. If I don't get these thoughts out, it'll drive me crazy. Then I thought, well I'll journal. My Aunt Denise gave me a journal for my seventh birthday. I was in second grade. I began to journal almost every night. I continued journaling all through high school and college. After college, I was busy with work and life and I didn't have time for it anymore. So now that I'm going crazy with all these thoughts, I figured I'd start journaling again. But I'm a much faster typist and I tend to forget my point when I'm writing by hand. And so, despite my reservations about sharing my thoughts and my fear of being faced with judgement and rejection, I'll blog. I'll blog because in all the big questions I've asked myself lately: "am I woman enough?" "what does God want me to do?" I think I have to start with brainstorming. So, Blog, it's me: Jaclyn.
On the Oprah show (I don't remember specifics) there was a woman, a young mother, who found out she had cancer and started video taping herself for her children. I always think about that: if I'm ever not here. I wonder "will they remember me?" It's devastating to think my children wouldn't; it's devastating to think that there are lessons I've learned and things I'd want them to know and in case I'm ever not able, or in case I forget, I'd like to think they might stumble upon this.
When I met my husband, I knew I was going to be with him. That was the day I went out and bought my first journal out of college. I started writing to him. I told him about it later, and I told him where it was in case he ever wondered what I was thinking. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, he never really has to guess what I'm thinking.
When I found out I was pregnant with each of my children, I did the same. I started a journal for each of them. Often times, I think about what I want to write, I'll even edit it in my head in the car ride home from somewhere. Yet to sit down in my bedroom and write it out, executing what I really want to do and tell them all the things I would have liked to know about myself as a child, it rarely happens. They deserve better.
"They deserve better" has been the commonality in most of my thoughts from the day I gave birth to my first child. At first it was a guilty "they deserve better", a self-deprecating "they deserve better". Now I feel healthier, now it's a self-help approach: how do I fulfill all the dreams I have for them, knowing that it will enrich my life as well? The laundry may not get done. My hair may not get dried. But I will blog, for me. I will blog for them. And in all the moments I begin to doubt myself I hope I find this. And in case they ever doubt themselves, or me, or life in general, and in case I'm not there to tell them or in case I forget: I hope they stumble upon this.
In this moment, I ask God for guidance and courage. Amen.
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