Pain

"If you feel my pain, then you understand my pain, and then I don't feel so alone."


Translation: If I feel terrible on the inside, and I make you feel terrible on the inside, then I feel a connection with you and that perverse emotional intimacy makes me feel better.


I was writing a rant today on a topic that I won't disclose (mainly because it's so unimportant that I am embarrassed that it warranted a rant, but hey, I'm a teenage girl) in my online journal, and I looked back over at what I had typed while my fingers were flying across the keyboard without regard to my brain, and that quote up there stared back at me.


And I thought that it was rather profound, in the profoundest way that something can be when it has been said hundreds if not thousands of times before. I love when sentences cut straight to the crux of a matter. That's what writing is for, I think: to unearth truth. There is my truth, and probably the truth of every other person who has said some less-than-nice things when upset.


What makes it more profound, though, is that I came up with that of my own accord. I learned it through experience, as opposed to reading it somewhere or hearing it spoken in 3rd person as a proverb. When something is learned through experience (and if the experience is interpreted correctly), it pretty much has to be true. There are exceptions. I can think of many. But none of the "somethings" I'm talking about (emotional somethings) are in there.


On to the online journal, which I have probably mentioned before. This site is called Penzu. It's like a blog, except entirely private unless you choose to share and looks more like paper than like a text box. The formatting options are non-existent until you upgrade to Pro (which, of course, costs money), but it's a great place for people who type faster than they write to get their thoughts out. It's where I go when I don't want something on here and I don't feel like writing it in a physical journal. So mine consists of rants, sappy poetry that will never ever EVER see the light of day, and...that's about it.
When it comes to journaling, I really prefer the act of interring my thoughts into a notebook rather than a screen, which results in the only online things being stuff I want to share (here) and overly emotional things that are completely embarrassing to read even a few minutes after they're written.
I have 5 or 6 active physical journals.  Perhaps I'm old-fashioned after all.