On Fire

I have a journal. Actually, I probably have four or five. Yes, I have this here, but this isn't a place where I write everything. I write with purpose here. It's for me, yes, and for maybe someone else who needs a little light. I started writing in a journal when I was 14. I am not fanatical about it. I will go months and months without writing a word, and then I will write ten days straight.

Tonight, I found the journal (it wasn't really lost, but misplaced). I flipped through to the end of December 2012, and while I normally do not (actually not sure I have ever) shared on here what I wrote in there, I am tonight.

I don't remember this exact day. It was December 16, 2012. I do know that the calendar year was coming to a close. I had charged in to 2012, determined to find myself, to have adventures, and to paint hope everywhere I went. I know that I was tired that day. And, I also know I wanted to be home. I couldn't sleep, and so I would stay up until early morning, and drag into work the next day.

In the middle of that, this is what I wrote:

I'm writing at the end of (almost end of) the year. It's actually early morning on the 17th. I'm not the same as I once was. I'm not the same as three months ago. I am not the same as a year ago. The pain I had then is not there anymore. I had been wearing it like a heavy wool coat with weighted hems. I did not put it away. I took it off, and I burned it. I took off. Ripped it. Cut it. Threw it in a can, lit it on fire, and I burned it. Then I walked away and left it there burning. 

Freedom has never felt better.

"Even a small spark can become a flame and change everything."