On Friday, I spent three hours or so going through Babycakes’s files. Babycakes, by the way, is what my laptop decided to call itself last year. I’ve called it/he/she such names as “Mac”, “Prissy”, “My Writer’s Bible”, and even “Thing”. But last year, for some strange reason, it/he/she became Babycakes. And it’s been that way ever since.

This is the part where a certain number of you are telling your own computer screens, “You ain’t foolin’ no one!” Y’all know exactly where I got the name Babycakes. But honestly, it wasn’t planned or anything. Just, one fine Wednesday morning I put the laptop on the kitchen table next to a cup of coffee and a plate of toast, and said, “Let’s get to work, Babycakes.” And the rest is history.

Happy history. And a future. But right now, we’re talking about history.

I have a tendency to save too many rough drafts of my works in progress. Which makes it hard to find the right work in progress when it’s time to add to it. Three versions is usually the standard. I keep the very original for posterity. The second draft as the Look-What-Changes-I’ve-Made-So-Far copy. And the third for the actual This-Is-What-I’m-Currently-Doing-To-It project. At some point, Number Three becomes Number Two and Number Two gets tossed out only after the unkept changes make their way back into Number One for notes and recovery which means at any given moment I could possibly have three Number One’s…

Confused? So was I.

Thankfully, I had nice labels on my folders. Clear, precise labels like “To Be Worked On” and “Submit Later” and “Ideas” and “Blog Stuff”. Yup. No chance of anything getting lost in those titles, am I right? [Yes. Yes, you do sense dripping sarcasm right there. Thank you so much for asking.]

I decided to tidy things up a bit more. I used actual descriptive words for labels. Now I have folders with such glorious titles as “Blog Photos” and “Short Stories” and each folder has sub-folders with specific titles or post names. It’s lovely. And neater. And now my computer desktop doesn’t look like someone just knocked down all my stacked documents for fun.

Now it looks efficient. Now I feel efficient. Now I feel clear-headed.

And in this great organizational task that I accomplished, I cleared out a few other things as well.

I found some old writings. Mostly projects that I’d forgotten. Ideas to start with. Poetry I’ve not yet shared. And some other writings as well.

Journaling from those moments that seem to last too long in life. Those times when words seemed to be my only friends, my only comfort. Parts and pieces of me that I’d forgotten, or I’d buried.

And here they were made fresh and new with my revival and reading of them. I had always kept them hidden. Knowing they were there, but not wanting to feel those feelings again. Lost, hurt, helpless, afraid, angry…

But right now, we’re talking about history.

And I’m not that person I once was. And the people in my life are not the same people. Even if they’re the same People. We change. We grow. We mature, or we don’t. We heal, or we don’t. But we move on. Even when we don’t. Nobody truly stays stagnant.

Everybody moves on.

And I did. I have. I am.

I read a few entries that had the opposite affect as the writing. I was able to read now, with the distance of years between me and That Girl in That Moment. I was able to see how strong and independent and alive I’ve become.

And I’m able to accept those past entries for what they are.

History.

And it’s okay to not hide from it. It’s okay to talk about it.

But I know.

I’m living for the future. The rest is… well, you know.

And Frankly, My Dear… that’s all she wrote!

My [Un]Broken Heart
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