This whole writing thing feels kind of like I’m having a conversation, an intimate one filled with curiosity and endless possibilities. But whenever I share it on social media I get a bit overwhelmed because it now feels as if I am starting a conversation with the world. I am now waiting to hear what they have to say or whether anyone has anything to say at all – whether my conversation is worth having or whether it’s one I should keep to myself. I am noticing numbers dropping or else they’re rising and it’s all so confusing. But whenever I decide not to share, it feels as if I am hiding.

Writing when I am alone doesn’t feel like this: it’s just me and the page. It doesn’t feel as if I’m hiding — if anything, It feels liberating. I have this deep connectedness with something bigger than myself that flows out first thing in the morning. It’s like all of the cells in my body let out a sigh of relief, like they’ve been waiting for me to come home to them and catch up with whatever it is that they have to say. It’s like we work together (mind, body & soul) to connect pieces of a bigger puzzle. Everything in the world just starts to make a little more sense. Time slips away. I feel alive. More like myself.

When I post online, I wonder what people will think of it, whether they’ll ‘get it’. If people will have the attention span for it. Maybe they’ll get offended by it. I should probably shorten it if I want people to consume it. Should I add a hashtag or explain why I chose to create it?  Maybe I’ll just delete it. That feels better than changing it or explaining it. Saves the hassle of worrying about it.

But maybe journaling and writing isn’t just a conversation with myself. Maybe all these words and thoughts don’t sum up who I am as a person. Maybe it isn’t about me at all, and it isn’t about you either. It just is what it is and I am here to express it. I share it because it’s waiting for someone to release it. It could provide words to start a conversation someone is craving, or it could provide words to end a conservation someone wasn’t able to finish. It might bring an “aha yes that’s what that is!’’ or it might get a “how could you say that!” It might sit with 0 Likes and nobody digesting it except for me and my family. Or it might get 100 likes and strangers saying “that sounds just like me”.

But I will continue doing it. I will just keep going. Keep the flow flowing. Not to know if others will like the flow, but because I might help someone when they’re stuck not knowing where to go — and that someone will probably be me. Maybe this ‘writing and sharing thing’ isn’t about saving lots of souls, maybe it’s all about saving mine.