Saturday, November 22, 2014

Justine's Journal #14

52 Weeks 500 Words


This is how it began: Justine (not her real name) decided to write 500 words (or as near as), anything goes, per week for 52 weeks. She would then submit it for anonymous posting, via me, her friend. Perhaps a pattern will emerge from her words, but at this stage it’s more an experiment I have agreed to share in. I’ll attempt to draw conclusions at the end of this. Stay tuned if this resonates with you.

Week 14

I admit, I’ve come to use this weekly post as a means to decipher my state of mind over the days past since the last one. Yes, that was and is the point, but the way I do it has changed.

Initially, when we started this, I would have pen and paper handy and jot notes as I went, or I would add to a document already open on my computer. A rolling commentary of days, so to speak, the issues, ideas and thoughts that came to mind to be recorded as they happened.

Life, however, blunts the edges. Eventually I found myself hurriedly sitting to quickly compose a post for submission, even when I didn’t feel like doing so, because a promise after all is a promise. In a strange way, that very act of writing hurriedly actually served to focus my thoughts, and therefore the exercise is not without merit. Still, the attention I thought to give to this went right out of the proverbial door – life got in the way.

What started out as a desire to discover who I am became all too quickly merely a matter of keeping a promise. I think this happened after the situation with that idiot who smashed into my car – I could not write because of the state I was in … and then wrote something quickly just to get it off my chest, and that set the tone. Are we not creatures of habit?

For your information, I am now composing this before due date. This is a conscious decision to see if doing so changes the manner in which I share thoughts. I will step away from this just now and return to it before I send it on.

If there is a marked difference, tell me!

Right, at this point I took a breath and searched my store of thoughts, to find the best issue to address here. Guess what came up first?

My absolute disenchantment with the ‘season to be jolly’. Christmas is coming and I want to hide away, yes, but I really don’t want to discuss it yet. In a way I’m hoping something good will happen to change my mind and therefore I must not at this point step on the likelihood by airing all those negative thoughts. Expect an update closer to the days in question!

I know this weekly update is from a woman’s perspective … how else? I do wonder, however, if men read it, and if they are able to use points made to further their understanding of how women think. Sometimes I wish I could read a weekly post from a man not afraid to air his feelings, in order to understand how men think. This would promote better understanding between the sexes, not so? On the other hand, let us be objective here. This journal is one woman’s mind set and doesn’t describe all of us, therefore one man’s entries cannot ever explain how all men think and act. We would have to collate multiple posts from different times and different countries, seasons, income groups and so forth, and that is a task I don’t relish undertaking.

For now, therefore, I’ll stick to this and see what comes up.'

(It seems to me, I thought more for this post, because there was no rush to write. It also feels as if this post is unfinished, as if there is more to say this week. A sign, I believe, of the processors in my brain kicking in when I take my time. Right?)



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