029: From the Heart, Through a Pen, to a Page

Today’s episode is a bit personal.

But I still feel the need to share it.

I think as I share all the things that make up regular, everyday life, we can all see each other as more alike than different.

Maybe you’ve never had any of the feelings I’m about to share

But I do know you feel emotions.

Letting those feelings out are an important part of letting go of what burdens us.

So, I hope you’ll indulge me as I share the thoughts I wrote down a few weeks after my dad passed away.

The feelings are still so raw. 

I hope that I can express them adequately. 

I want my dad’s pens.  I don’t know why that hit me so hard today. 

My eyes filled with tears and my chest tightened up with emotion.

What would make me feel so strongly about this?

I thought of his red pencil that marked his scriptures.

I want to mark my scriptures with the same pencil. 

Will I feel the spirit more?

Will I feel things my dad felt as he read?

Will I feel closer to both?

I thought of his refillable lead pencil that had as small of a point lead as you can get.

He wrote so small and precise.

Always printed.

Only his signature was in cursive.

I remember him helping me with math with the same pencil he left on his desk before he died.

Same pencil.

35 years later.

It never wore out so why replace it?

He used a pocket size planner, one that would fit in his shirt pocket. 

He had to write small or he wouldn’t have been able to fit much in there.

I use a really big planner, but I also use a very fine tip pen so I can print small.

Similar but different.

I wonder if that means anything?

There’s something very personal about what a person writes with.

At least to me.

I know the things that come out of a writing instrument.

Some of the most personal things I’ve experienced have been expressed from my heart through my pen onto a page.

Some of the strongest promptings from Heavenly Father came as I was writing.

My pen has felt my emotions.

As I spend a half an hour with my pen to paper every morning as I journal, emotions I didn’t even know were in there come spilling out onto the page.

They teach me things I had forgotten I knew. 

They reach out to comfort and teach me when I wasn’t even aware I was going to need comfort or to be taught.

Emotions are good.  I’m grateful to feel a full range of emotions.

Some people don’t.  That means higher highs but also lower lows. 

I’ve learned to be ok with that.

Opposition is what teaches me best.

I want to feel my dad’s emotions.

I want to combine our emotions in a way that he wasn’t able to express in words to me.

Maybe I’ll feel them as I’m writing with his pens.

I want those pens & pencils in my life.

I want them on my desk.

I want them in my hands.

I know they’re just things.

But they were his things.

They mean something to both of us.

Something I hope to share with him if only through our spirits for now.

029: From the Heart, Through a Pen, to a Page
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