I had to keep a journal for a class. I hated the assignment at first; I already kept my own journal and nothing among those pages was anything I was willing to write down on requirement. No one would be reading it, but still…I felt it was more of a burden than a release.

But today I realized something, today as I wrote the last entry. I discovered I had been more honest in the required 48 entries than I had ever been in my own book. I found that I had regrets, and kept a mental list of them; a dangerous proposition for someone who already analyzes every decision. I learned I would do anything to have things go the way I imagined them, and that that is a selfish way to live, but I would give up so much for things to go that way.

I wrote about anxiety and depression, things I had been intentionally vague about in my “black books.” I wrote about a feeling I used to know, when I welcomed depression and the absolute darkness that came with it, because I knew what that was and it gave me power to know I had faced it, and that whatever came next could not possibly be worse. I had become so numb, that nothing hurt me.

And now I find myself searching for depression to escape anxiety, looking for a way back to a feeling I knew, to escape a feeling I cannot control.

It never even occurred to me to look for happiness.

I was going to burn that journal. It is too personal, too honest and the words within are too dangerous in the hands of anyone. I hated that journal…I wanted nothing to do with it. But now that’s over, I’ll miss it. I won’t continue, but I won’t throw it away. I discovered it was not loss that I feared, but endings. I hate when things are over.