unpacking memories

this weekend is home improvement weekend, but it also includes unpacking my boxes of books to fill my new bookshelves. i love my books, i love to look through them and remind myself of those i've read, those i've yet to read and those i'll never read - they've been packed up for almost two years and so unpacking is literally unpacking memories, old friends and i've missed them. mixed in with my books in the boxes are my old journals; i'm starting to reread where i was at different places in my life and today came across this entry (dated 2003):

I have so much feeling and emotion inside me and too many people who know bits and pieces and love to tell me how they think I should feel and react, but the truth of the matter is that I'm the only one who's ever been inside me so I'm the only one who knows what I should do. So many changes, so much pain and so much happiness. I was only gone a week and it seems fall has set in and summer is officially over and it makes me so terribly sad because I know there may/will never be this summer again - this Seattle, this ______, this anything. Reckless love? Hurt? Anger? Fear? Will this happen again? Can it be alright? What do I need to do for me? Heal, but how - not when ______ is hurting - and I can't be there to support, to think, to believe. Will I be the one that got away? Will he? How do you support someone you love who has hurt you, but whom you also know to be hurting? I have no answers. I can't keep putting my life on hold....I want to be there, but need to nourish myself. "Remember happy moments and the rest will work itself out," XXX says. But there are so many - my life, my summer on and on - they over-shadow all else, yet I still feel pain. Memories fading, moments of sadness, what if I never feel this again? I have to let it go and do what comes naturally to me. What is that?

#####

no one said i wasn't a little bit dramatic, but this is me real, unplugged, passionate. i shouldn't feel this anguished, but this is the passion i should always feel.

this post brought to you by memories and the letter "M"; keep watching for more journalistic reflections to come.