As a kid, I had a diary.

Oh yes. The one you’re picturing in your head right now. The bright colored prints and the tiny lock with its tiny key, meant to keep all of the prying eyes out.

This was made to be a space just for my thoughts.

I can still remember the words I used to write. I even remember the people I wrote about in the 4th grade. I was the girl who’d moved back to town after being gone since Kindergarten. I was the new girl. Again.

I wrote all the silly little moments of my day, and I wrote about two little boys in particular who’d, in their 4th grade way, told me they liked me.

And then I moved away again before the year was even over.

By the time I moved back in 5th grade, I somehow didn’t fit anymore. It was such a strange time, and I think it’s kind of weird that I remember it so well.

From there, I wrote about my observations of all of us growing up. I have no idea how I caught on at such a young age that apparently, all the girls’ moms had taught them the game of becoming popular. I did not get that rule book, I guess. But I remember watching them play their parts. It seemed kind of surreal to me, but it worked. Those were the girls who were popular up until the day we all graduated.

Once I moved back in 5th grade, I’d get to stay until I graduated from high school. Boy, what a ride those years were. Certainly didn’t leave me without words to fill up a box of journals. That is for sure.

Eventually, I started trying to write songs. That went over about as well as me attempting to try out for cheerleading in the 9th grade. I stayed after school to go to tryouts, and ended up missing my bus home just to sit outside the gym because I couldn’t even get myself to go in. I ended up calling my aunt to pick me up from school that day, and I’m not sure I ever even told anyone. Pretty sure that secret was safe because if you’d known me back then, you would have never believed it. Trust me.

So, I had a stack of diaries with their keys and journals with stars and moons and hearts.

It was as pathetic as it sounds.

I’m not sure what happened, but I stopped writing after high school and only wrote one song.

I had just had my heart shattered. My senior year, I’d met this guy. We never dated, but I cared about him a lot. He supported all of my crazy dreams and he was there for everything I ever sang at school, even though he was already out of high school. He took off work to be there for my Honors Day when I sang our graduation song. That afternoon, he had roses sent to me at school, and I still have the card to this day. It said, “These flowers are almost as beautiful as your voice. You’re going to go far. Stay Sweet.” I think he did to me what I do to others. He put me up on the pedestal simply because of my potential. It’s weird to be on the other side of that. It has only happened twice. It’s not something you forget, though.

He ended up moving to Jacksonville Beach and when he was about to move back, he’d told me I was welcome to stay in his empty studio apartment, across from the ocean, as long as I left the key on the counter when my friend and I left. So, we made the drive and I got to see him one last time. We all went swimming that night, and then fell asleep on our pallets we’d made on the floor. He’d already moved all of his stuff out and had planned to be gone before we woke the next morning.

In the middle of the night, I had to go to the bathroom. I made my way through the dark to the door that led to the hallway back to the bathroom. I cut the light on, and there he was, sitting in the middle of the floor…and all I could figure in that flash before I flicked the light back off faster than lightning, was that he was shooting up some type of drug.

I was so shattered that I immediately laid back down and went back to sleep. I think I prayed it wasn’t what I thought and that if I just went to sleep, it wouldn’t be real.

The next morning, I woke up and he was gone.

Unfortunately, things seemed to make sense to me then. There had been one night he was supposed to go with me to Amelia Island for another one of my sunrise shoots, but we had to stop in Waycross because he was throwing up blood.

What was so strange to me was that he showed absolutely no signs of using drugs. He had a great job, and always followed through on anything he said he would do, and just did not fit that description.

As my friend was in the shower that morning, I sat on the cooler I’d brought, in front of this beautiful old french door window. This song came to me so quickly that I wrote it on a paper towel because I didn’t have any paper.

If you know me, you know it is very hard for me to quit on people.

But just like the little girl who didn’t bother playing the “get popular” game in 5th grade, and the girl who decided not to walk into that gym that day, I knew I had to let him go. Shawn Mullins’ music would never sound the same to me. I knew that much. And I was right.

Just so that part has a happy ending, even though I never did talk to him again, I did see him one more time. I was supposed to be on my way to see some friends’ band play in Tallahassee to ring in the new year, but turned around and went to see a different friend’s band and ended up singing with them again. During their set, I saw him through the crowd and started crying. I ran over and gave him a hug and was relieved he wasn’t dead, I guess. They ended up asking me later who he was because they said when I saw him, I looked like I had seen a ghost. To me, I had. We didn’t talk that night, he left. Thankfully, I did find out a few years ago that he is seemingly healthy now and has a beautiful family.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only heartbreak that would come from that weekend. My friends’ band from Tallahassee happened to be playing a show in Jacksonville that Saturday night and their manager was trying to find a place for them to stay. Well, because the friend I was with wasn’t the greatest friend, and I was dealing with whatever had happened the night before, I ended up not letting them stay with us. This is a regret I have carried with me all these years. It may sound stupid, but nothing was ever the same with us after that, and I always had to wonder if that was why. Eh, just add it to the “I’ll never truly know” pile.

It wouldn’t be too many years after that I’d be sitting, writing, again. Another heartbreak, but this one I thought for sure would take me out. My vision was so blurry with tears and replaying thoughts that writing was all that could save me.

I started a blog, and the more I healed, the more I thought about quitting writing again; stopping that blog in particular. I felt stupid because I’d been so vulnerable and figured no one cared, so why not just delete it?

Before I could is exactly when I received that message from a stranger telling me they had been contemplating suicide…and then they found my blog.

That took my breath.

I couldn’t even comprehend the fact that anything I had written would have any kind of impact on someone’s life, much less save a life.

Yet, somehow, years later, I quit again. It would be years and years before I’d write again. My journal had been read. The privacy was taken. There wouldn’t be a safe place left to pour my over-crowding thoughts again.

Almost two decades later, I started this blog. I figured if I couldn’t write in private anymore, maybe that meant there was someone else out there who needed to read what I wrote? Then, the more I healed, the more I wanted to delete everything because it felt stupid again.

Then, I got an email last week.

Maybe I didn’t save a life in the same way, but I would like to think I gave someone the courage to be vulnerable. I never realized it takes courage because it was the only way I knew to be. But I am starting to see that it’s a super scary thing for a lot of people. I guess I am transparent because if I connect with people, I want it to be because they actually know me and not because I’ve hidden the things that made me the person I am today.

Maybe the lesson in all of this for me is to expect something amazing to happen every time I get the urge to quit.

I think this is the best “almost” anything in my life.

Almost quitting.

~Alisha