Last night I had a few minutes before I had to do the taps accountability check for my squad and so I decided to sit down and write a little. I wasn’t sure how to start or what to write, so I decided to write a letter to Matt just like I did all of last summer. This summer I don’t think that I’ll actually send the letters to him because times have changed and I’ve come to understand more clearly what the purpose of those letters was. I have to find a new purpose to write. What I write this summer will help me more than anything with my development as a leader. A journal would be best, but in the past I haven’t been very good at consistently writing in journals. There needs to be someone who I’m trying to talk to about what is going on in my life and my thoughts. As much as I tried to deny it and ignore it, that was why I started this journal. I had a specific person in mind that I wanted to share stuff with. That is still the case, but that person has changed. I still write, and always have written, primarily for myself and to jot down what is in my head and going on in my life, but a lot of the time I’m hoping that someone specific reads it and is interested in it.

On the topic of journals, the other day the under three classes were tasked with cleaning out the trunk room. We were allowed to throw out anything marked with the year 2003 or lower. Of course, when we found boxes of stuff we didn’t immediately throw them away, but first went through them to see if there was any good stuff that we wanted. I found the book The Long Grey Line, a very nice book of the complete works of Shakespeare, over 20 wooden hangers, and probably the best find was a leather journal. I saw it buried in a box we were going through and picked it up because it reminded me of a journal that I had bought at the bookstore at the beginning of plebe year but only managed to write in a few times. I opened it up and saw that only a fifth of the pages had entries so I saved it and figured that I could tear those pages out. That didn’t exactly happen though. I must confess that I read the journal and it has made a very big impact on me. It was written by someone when they were a plebe. I’ve forgotten who’s box I found it in and I don’t really care to find out. The anonymity is part of what makes it so moving. They poured out there heart and feelings in there and it has opened my eyes to some things that I think will help me more understand one of the people in my life.

Back on the topic of writing in journals, in this one I’ve become much more guarded in what I say. That has its good points and its bad ones. It is hard to say what I truly want to say when I have my guard up and put some topics off limits and speak in generalities about certain things. One thing I found very refreshing about writing Matt was that I did away with those barriers for the most part.