by Dan Hiland

Created on: May 24, 2009

TO MY JOURNAL

Friday, 25 April, 2008:

It is with a touch of sadness and regret that I pen this note to you.

It appears that our relationship must come to an end.

No- I haven't met someone else. More like some thing else.

Please try to understand. Since 1975, I've confided in you about so many things in my life. You know that.

And though the journals I've written in have taken different shapes and sizes, it was You and not the book I was confiding in, sharing things with. Until a blank page is written on, it is just a page, but once graced with the written word, it becomes a journal, or diary, or essay or ledger, or whatever else the author's intent for the information be.

And don't think I'm not grateful. Many are the times when you were the only one who listened and remembered- the only one besides God (and my memory banks, that's been with me from Oregon to Canada, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Florida, Virginia and South America.

You've seen me through scores of girlfriends, dates, jury duty, cars, sickness, health, epiphany, stupidity, marriage, birth, death, jobs, layoffs, and everything else life has deemed worthy or necessary to toss in my direction.

"Why," you ask, "Does it have to come to an end?"

Well, it's not that it has to, as much as I choose for it to stop. I could continue to record life's events large and small, but I won't, and for what I consider to be valid reasons- the main one being that I've found a better way.

"But what could be better," you query, "than to always have me as the repository and chronicler of your life?"

"This is what's better," I reply. "Sharing these self-same events with others, and in a more meaningful way."

"And as I said before, I value your service- yea, your very existence- more than I can say. It was because of the 32 years of scribbling on your pages that I learned how to write. Without your continued presence I would be lost.

At the same time, though, something inside me has changed.

While the desire to share and story-tell has always lurked in the background, it was when I became serious about putting pen to paper, and letting my imagination take over, that I drifted away from you.

I discovered another place inside my mind that had been tapping, then pounding on the door, wanting out in the worst way. And once released, this thing called the "writing process" began to unfold on the page in front of me- one surprise after another.

While I did have the occasional epiphany during my toils amidst

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