“Quote,” myself.
by Alexis Jones

“Life is like a masquerade ball. Baroque masks replace authenticity; fancy facades take the place of character and the clinking of glasses substitutes for sincerity and depth. But then the clock strikes midnight and our Cinderella fantasy fades. But what if we could just skip the charade? I think we could all use a little more authenticity in our lives. Maybe, by making a pact with the world and with each other, we can once and for all exchange glib for compassion. We can exchange resignation with inspiration and hope. And maybe… just maybe we can make this world a little brighter.”                                                                                                            — myself

Recently a friend reached for my leather bound journal and asked me to “quote myself.” Despite being an avid journal writer, I have rarely reread a single line that I have written. Rather I have fantasized that one day when I’m ninety, I’ll reach for my coke-bottle glasses and thumb through the story of my life. But until then my life’s adventures have remained crystallized in a beautifully bound journal that is filed away at the back of my closet with the rest of the memory keepers.

Until today. The “quote request” jostled my curiosity and for the first time ever, I peeked into the already-forgotten cursive filled pages. When I looked into my journal, I caught glimpses of emotion, confessions of the heart, faint fears, and insecurities scribbled like a child. There was something foreign about the words, like a mystery movie where the antagonist has a letter written in her handwriting, with no recollection of having written it. A part of me shied away from the pages. It felt voyeuristic. I was looking at the inner caverns of my head and my heart. Rather than hearing my voice, I read accounts from an uncensored, idealistic, hopeless romantic– jotting down song lyrics interlaced with intellectual inquiry into the state of the human experience. There were moments of masterful confidence, brilliant eloquence, splatter painting of four letter words, childlike vulnerability, ironic pessimism, surmounting faith justifying my latest disappointment, seventh grade crush confessions, and my wildest dreams whispered to my silent confidant.

My journal is me, my guts splashed on a page capturing every layer of who I am. How do we know who we are or what we stand for if we never ask ourselves? How do we begin to understand this life in all is complexities if we don’t take time to reflect on it? I scribbled notes, I drew pictures, and made up new symbols desperately trying to make sense of what life means, or who I am and why things work out the way they do or don’t. Then I refused to look back.

Despite the patronizing request to quote myself, I admittedly spent several hours the following day hashing through years of memories. It was like a novel, only I no longer knew the author. I had outgrown her. But I became inspired by the insight. I witnessed my own process of immeasurable maturation. I experienced hilarity. I saw redemption and grace intertwined with the deepest of broken hearts; a mosaic of life’s most memorable experiences.

I wiped away the stream of tears, reliving my nephew’s birth, giggling over meaningless spats, resurrecting an old boy friend, and waltzing with the dreams that are now my reality. It occurred to me that we are in fact all our own authors. Whether you capture your story in journal form or not, you create your life and that makes you the director of your own play, starring you. Front and center. You.

My journal is a window to who and what I am and was. It is forever a glance backwards, past tense, a highlight reel of my life in beautiful snap shots. But far more inspiring than the word-filled pages are the blank ones that lie ahead. The pen sits in my hand and so does yours. We have the freedom; the choice to make up whatever story we want. The ability to create any adventure we can imagine. My story will go something like this, “there was this girl once, she believed she could change the world, so much so she wrote the greatest adventure story to date and sure enough she made it a reality.”

If only in the privacy of a leather-bound journal hidden amongst your latest reads,  take off your mask. We could use a little more authenticity in this world but it must first start with us. I’ll make you a deal, you take yours off… and so will I.

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