Don't Write it Down

My mom's advice to me was "If you don't want your father to read it, don't write it down." Those words kept me from writing a diary and have hindered me a lot as I try to write my passionate feelings out.

Not just dad, but most people. I will either hurt myself or someone else if I write some of the things down that are going on in my head. So, I try to avoid difficult situations and simply ignore the process. This might be why I talk so much. The spoken word can be much more ephemeral and people generally don't listen closely enough to recite a conversation verbatim. Oh, I've gotten into trouble by believing that maxim, but for the most part, it holds.

This is why you will rarely read much 'angst' on my blog or read words where I bash and trash people. Don't let me fool you. I go through as many periods of angst as anyone else and I bash and trash on a regular basis. It's one of my greatest failings. I hate that the Bible is constantly teaching against gossip. That fully messes with some of my greatest conversations. And generally, I just ignore it. Good Christian girl, aren't I?

I wonder what I would have done if mom had implied to me at a very young age that dad could hear all of the words that I spoke. Would that have ingrained in me a fear of even speaking badly about others? Poor mom learned that lesson the hard way many times. Whenever she would begin gossiping about someone, by golly, that person or a friend of theirs was in the booth right behind us at a restaurant. She taught us to scout out the room before we let her proceed with ugly words.

There's one other thing that makes it easy to refrain from writing down passionate anger and angst. When that happens, it is so easy to be reminded of those ugly feelings and thoughts. All one has to do is re-read and re-read the words written. If I don't write them and the passion passes (which it usually does with a good night's sleep), I'm not continually reminded of the situation that brought those feelings about.

So ... tonight I'm not writing things down that tick me off. I'm reliving memories of my family and that is much better.