Paper

Hello, Dear Readers and welcome to the first installment of a new blog/diary/image collection which I have started just to pull some of these things from my brain and voice them with the wider world. It is narcissistic to think anyone will read this, which is actually helpful in a way as it lets me just BLEHHH all of it onto the page without fear of repercussions and without actually forcing someone to listen to what I feel like saying. I have been keeping a little electronic notepad of these ideas on my phone but I always fancied having somewhere to collect them. As the theme here is learning to live without, I will make topics for each post to fit into this idea, and today’s is Paper, as instead of keeping a paper diary (the kind of thing certain ex-boyfriends would scowl and write in while sitting in front of you at Christmas In The Park, as you were there with your new boyfriend and that did not sit well, but scowling and writing in a book at home has less of a dramatic effect) I will keep an electronic one. One of the benefits of using Blogger is that I use my google login a lot so it is only a buttons click away at all times. How time flies – twenty years ago would this have been a common thing like it is today?

So this time I am LTLWO Paper. For years (even this year in fact) I would go out and seek the perfect notebook so that I could pour my heart and soul onto its pages… only to give up two days in. All of that paper wasted – I never used them again because that wouldn’t be a fresh slate, a new start. There would be pages torn from bindings and it would make me sad to look at them.  I tried to be strict with myself, and yes -once when I had a series of big breakups I kept notes -but they were awful. Cryptic poetic clues to try and decipher. They made sense at the time but when I go back to look at them it is really painful, but not for bad memories - instead for the cringe you get from reading something taken so seriously but written so badly. That inward chill that follows your spine when you see someone do something incredibly embarrassing and it reminds you of a similar time when you had done something of a similar caliber. Regrets are awful but they are part of the human experience I guess. 

This time things are different. Using an electronic copy is both secret and not. If I hate this blog I can always delete it. I doubt anyone will read this, so I doubt anyone will worry if it disappears in time. I am sure I will miss the feeling of paper that has been scrawled all over, where you can feel the bumps on each page and together as a book they make that delightful crinkle sound. 

Next time I will put in all of the notes from my phone's notebook but for now, I think this explains enough. 

 - Beth