If I look back, I would say that I’ve always been a writer of some sort. But is it strange that I never wanted to write a novel?

I wrote a story once when I was in grade school about a grown up version of me that started a home for girls from troubled families. I imagined during the school day that my home for girls was at the school. I don’t remember much about what I wrote. In middle school, I deemed the story as crap and threw it away.

After that I started keeping journal after journal of the darkest years of my life. I have been working on going through them slowly, as not to sink back down.

I started finding pen pals. Some were from foreign countries. I wanted to learn about their lives. There was a girl from Brazil that didn’t write in English. I had the hardest time finding someone to translate Portuguese. The best I could find is someone who knew Spanish. I could only read a line or two from every letter.

Then the internet came along and I got more pen pals(?) using dial up to get on my email.

I still don’t have an interest in writing a novel. I want to write about my own life.

I have had some very deep lows that seemed to sweep the ocean floors. I have had some pretty big highs that launched me out of this very atmosphere. Both are hard to write about honestly.

My experiences have been very unique, but my feelings are universal.

I learned that it is important to do what I want in life regardless of what others think. I live by this motto and refuse to be put in a box. People complain about everything I do anyway. So, who cares?

But yet I struggle.

Last week I lost a friend, my last pen pal from the dial up days. In the almost 20 years that we have been friends, I visited her twice. She unfriended me, along with her husband and daughter.

What is it about me that she didn’t like?? Was it because I took my daughter to the Lana Del Rey concert?? Was it because I visited the Buddhist temples in Thailand? Is it because I like to have fun once in awhile?? I don’t fit very well into the Christian box sometimes. Or maybe it was because I never replied to her last message. I was intending to.

It hurt. I tried to brush off the feelings of rejection.

95% of the time I don’t care what others think of me. It is the 5% that trips me up and prevents me from sharing the full story. I am afraid that you will reject me too. I’ve been feeling troubled about this the last couple of days.

Maybe I shouldn’t share as much as I do.

What are your thoughts?

What do you do?

If I do tell you, maybe you will reject me too.

I want to share my life story with you, but sometimes the 5% holds me back.