Excerpts from the Diary

Dear Diary,

Wow. I don't think I have written those words since middle school. But my heart is full, and you've been my trusted confidant for so many years.

I feel so lost right now. Like I'm living a square shaped life, and trying to fit it into circle shaped circumstances. I feel like, I just need to go somewhere where I'm the stranger for a little while. Find a nice quiet, country pub and inn I can work in. Meet people. Discover their stories. Rest. Figure out who I am without having to fight the identity people are throwing on me. To be somewhere, where I am not having to live up to their expectations, but simply learning who I am, wholly in Christ. No social, familial, or work pressures. Just me.

I have been encouraged to write a book, and I confess I am tempted to try my hand at it. For real this time. My life isn't Rory Gilmore by any means, but hey, maybe I have something to say that someone needs to hear. Kate, as we're calling her, is the friend who suggested I write it. She offered that perhaps a detailed script of my life isn't what I need to write- but rather, a book of quotes that people can relate to. One liners or small paragraphs that speak from human soul to human soul- what better place to connect? There are so many feelings that so many people can identify with, and all it takes is one person to say it, for a thousand people to say "I thought I was alone, but now I know I am not."

I think if I ever did publish it, I would publish under the name Ellen. Simply because I love the anonymity it has brought me. I want to build Ellen, and become her. She is the goal for me. She is who I want to be. Ellen is bold, daring, and strong in her faith. She exudes Christ from every pore of her being. She broken, but twice as strong with the mending. She is who people want to be friends with, whom men want to woo and marry, and who young girls look up to.

I am trying as hard as I can to become Ellen. Courageous Ellen. But for now, it's just a name and a goal.

Thanks for listening diary. You always were so good at that <3

Xo,
Ellen