C e n s o r e d

I started writing when I was 15.

On July 22, 2002 I lost my best friend in a car accident. Not long after, my parents put me in counseling and one of the ways that I learned to cope with my grief and the lack of my best friend to confide in, I started writing to him. So my journaling started with Dear Brett, and I wrote often and a lot and I poured my heart and soul out onto the paper. Being a teenager is a confusing time. I was in my head a lot and it really spiraled when I lost him. I jumped into a relationship right after with someone 3 years older than me, and now when I look back, I think he had a lot to do with me staying on the right path and not getting caught up in underage drinking and other things.

Anyways, back to writing. It has always been my outlet. I've had this story in my head that I'm not good at communicating or using my voice. So instead, I have put pen to paper, and then fingers to keyboard and just spilled. It was a safe. Words on paper or words on a screen still keep me safe.

Except at some point, I started writing with a filter. What used to be free self expression, turned into writing it or wording it a certain way so that there's as little room for misinterpretation as possible. I've been aware of it for awhile...4 years to be exact...but I haven't been able to step outside of that.

Until now. Right here in this moment, I'm done.

So with that being said, I have a lot of random things that float around in my head. Some days I have a solid grasp on not getting caught up in all the bullshit stories that I have created and continue to create and in all the meaning that I add to things/people/circumstances that actually have zero meaning whatsoever. And sometimes, I'm in it. Like deep in it, and confused, and questioning everything I could possibly question, and just so in my head that it's comical. In the moment, definitely not comical. But I'm working on turning all the BS into something I can laugh about once I'm able to come back into the light.

Life changes when you give yourself the space and freedom to be whatever version of you that needs to exist in that moment. And life really changes when you can laugh about the BS that you keep yourself in sometimes. I'm just so thankful to be where I am in this moment.

So with that, I promise to no longer write with a filter. No limits, nothing off the table. This is my life and I'm done with letting other people influence my self expression.