When I was in college, I started journaling.  It was something that I looked forward to everyday, the opportunity to put my thoughts down on paper to remain there forever.  I was always excited when I was able to fill up a journal, because that meant I could find a beautiful new book to hold my inner-most thoughts.  I recently was going through my closet and found boxes of old journals. While I didn't read through them, I was reminded of how special they were to me.  Those books held my struggles, fears, successes, joys, failures, and ramblings of nearly ten years. 

I haven't journaled on a regular basis for quite some time now, I've been sporadic at best, but something recently inspired me to start again.  I've always had a love for writing, and that love was re-ignited when I traveled to Haiti.  Traveling to Haiti was something that I didn't really expect to do, as the decision was made about a month and a half before the trip.  I had wanted to go to Africa this summer, possibly to Gabon, but those plans didn't work out.  It would be an understatement for me to say that this trip to Haiti was life-altering, which I will share much more about in the future.  But for now, in the context of writing, Haiti brought me back to journaling.  At the end of long, hot days, I would sit out on the porch of our house and write pages until my hand hurt about the events of the day, things that inspired me, shocked me, brought tears to my eyes, and brought me laughter.  I couldn't get enough of my journal.  I felt like my senses were on overload, and I had to get every sound, smell, sight onto the page in the best way I knew how. 

So now, this new blog becomes my public journal.  While it takes on a more public format, my hope is that it does what all those old journals reminded me of:  stories of experiences that molded, transformed, and sometimes, made no sense at all.