Dear Diary…

Along with the January Jumpstart 2023 challenge, Molly’s Daily Kiss has begun a new writing meme/prompt called Revelations. I’m a sucker for a writing prompt, though I frequently miss deadlines. Take, for example, the Penis prompt in September’s Kink of the Week and the Inspections one that ended the year. I have lots to say about both of these topics, and even have posts started and saved in draft for them both, but never actually got them posted. Maybe this month of daily writing will bring them to the blog?

Anyway. I am hoping that January Jumpstart will both inspire me and also give me the swift kick in the ass I need to sit my butt in my chair and just fucking write. There’s a thing K says to me when I’m throwing my ball all over the place and getting frustrated (we’re talking bowling now): “Stop thinking and just throw the ball.” Stop getting in my own way, in other words. Writing can be like that, too. I’m hoping January Jumpstart will be me just “throwing the ball,” and that Revelations (as well as the other memes I participate in) may help me get out of my own way and just write.

With that in mind, I really like this first Revelations prompt, Dear Diary…

I like the concept of a diary, always have, and even sometimes kept one, back in the bad old days of writing by hand. But I honestly never took to it much before I discovered online journaling, and created my first LiveJournal. Remember LiveJournal? Mine is still active, or it was the last time I took a look. Suddenly there was a place that I could write – but also where I could be seen.

I get that what I do here mostly navel-gazing – that and exhibitionism. I probably wouldn’t do it without somebody out there to read it, or at least me thinking that someone is out there reading it. It is in the act of revelation – of revealing myself – that I get satisfaction. At LiveJournal, it was to an anonymous audience that nevertheless, eventually, became a kind of community to me. But when I started my original PiecesofJade blog (the blog that was saved and still lives here), the act of revelation became almost a kink. It was essentially a love letter to W, a way to share, excavate and lay open my deepest, most hidden self to him. It was a way that we communicated, remembered and relived our adventures together. I revealed my thoughts and feelings to him, stripped myself bare, and we both reveled in it.

And we both reveled in the attention it got from others, too. It would be disingenuous to say otherwise.

Both the Canadian and the Hypnotist read here now, too. In fact it is one of my tasks set by K to write here three times a week. I know the Canadian reads it to keep up with my life, and he enjoys my exhibitionism. The Hypnotist, well, even though he has set me the task, I know that it was set because I needed it set. I needed the structure and accountability to compel me to write. But I know he enjoys helping – and sometimes compelling – me to create content, in the form of Scavenger Hunting and our kink and hypnosis play. Having him out there, reading, makes me want to keep writing, keep exposing myself, to open myself to him. This space has begun to feel as necessary a part of our relationship as it was between W and I, even if K and I don’t communicate as much through it. It’s become part of my (our?) kink.

But this is, at its heart, a diary. Yeah, I choose to post mainly on specific topics, and it’s mostly exhibitionism, but – even though I left the holiday family drama out of my post before – I still wrote about it. I just saved it in draft and haven’t served it up for public consumption. (Yet. That may still happen.) I do write and post about “real life” shit – love and loss and grief and break-ups and my dog and job and Van Morrison and being a parent and a sister and a daughter and a friend and a lover and a companion. I write about bowling and food and hiking and writing. I’m an overthinker, and this is where I can put a lot of those overthought thoughts, even if I don’t post them. Even if I don’t start my posts with, “Dear Diary…” And it’s one reason I love Molly’s new meme, and that she says she started it mostly for herself – though we’re all welcome to join in.