Ghosts-- Edited and updated.

I decided to dive into the past this evening.  Pulled out two old journals from the beginning of my relationship with Chris.  I wrote approximately ONE journal entry in the entire first year that we were married.  That is crazy.  Do you even know how much I write?  How much I wrote before that?  

To be fair, there were actually some brief snippets and notes.  I don't want to misrepresent things.  

Sept 13, notes from a poetry reading that heavily featured Kerouac. 

Notes from a concert on September 23 in the form of a list:
"-Jump pterodactyl backstage
-Steal tambourine
-Steal lead singer's bicep for Craing costume
-Expose bands that blatantly rip off Goldfinger."

NO idea what concert that was.

Then on March 19th there was a pro/cons chart in which I debated moving back to Cleveland.

Brief notes from March 27th about not writing and then mostly about the Women's History Month belly dancing performance that was coming up the next day and how choreography was going and about all the kids participating.

July 9th, a list of possible ways to spend the lawsuit money. There was a lot of travel on that list.

July 20th.  The only substantial entry from the entire first year of my marriage.  You can ask if you want to know what it said.  Pages long and thoughtful and gut-wrenching and honest and true true true.

Then August 4th.  It started out with me drinking a beer on the front porch by my lonesome and being happy to be taking a break from working on the new house.  There was some celebration of my accomplishments, but then some of the other stuff too.

Then nothing til December when I was pretty sure I had my first miscarriage.  After reading about that quick little pregnancy, I'm pretty sure it was real.  That makes two.  Poor little ones.  But before I miscarried, I already started listing names. Pretty cool to see what was on those lists.

And that was it for the paper journal.

So I went on line to dig up my ooooooold livejournal/deadjournal to see if I did my writing there instead.  I was bracing for some truly embarrassing stuff, but it was actually kind of cute, little helenthoughts of the past.  I was thinking "awww" and "how simple" and "wow that one line there was pretty good, babyhelen."  Anyway.  My research showed that there was very little online writing from that time in my life, too.  That's something.  That truly is something.  

Here are some entries that don't necessarily have word-merit and sound-coolness, but I liked 'em: 


From February 2005:  

got a hangover from pizza, documentaries and half a mug of green tea. weird.

feel like venting, but just saying that in public calms the urge somewhat. i'm going to make breakfast and go dancing with strangers. be back later unless i just make it a city day.


I like how I used to just go have city days with myself.  I look forward to when that happens again, to when I can just go make an extraordinary day happen like *snap* and go!  Station wagon ahoy!

From January, 2005 a few days after we got engaged: 


Risk

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom. 


Anaïs Nin



This is one true gem because it highlights my supremely terrible typing skills among other personality traits.  So this here is my very first internet journal post.  I think it came even before my old geocities website (oh my peas did I really do all that?  could I still remember the html? ha!).  Friends, I would like to introduce you to a ghost: 2001 helen bednarz* all lowercase.  With a star at the end of the z.  Yeah, she's the one.  What a little kid.  Here's what she wrote.  Here's the FIRST thing she wanted to say:

you never know how much people touch your life til they leave it for a while. then you always seem to want to get them back. 

speaking of which, i was thinking about stuffi want to be one of those magical people. the ones that youalways remember adn the ones that don't even seem quite human... you know the ones i mean. They exist in your life, your every day life but they seem to have some ethereal glow about them- their actions do, everything. they are from a more enchanted place and you can almost see the magic rising off of them like steam. They leave a warm feeling on your eyes when you see them, even after they've floated out of your field of vision. They give you a feeling of (youth and carousels and new crayons and presents)when you think about them for a fleeting moment as you shampoo your hair or put sugar in your tea. they don't make you feel LIKE the (crayons)... just that feeling of magic goodness that comes from those (things)