As I sit here, staring at the stack of journals and notebooks scattered across my desk, I am reminded of the countless nights I spent pouring my heart and soul onto the pages. The memories, the emotions, the struggles – all of it written with candid honesty, never once holding back the truth. My secret life, one that few knew existed, was mere pages away from being exposed.

It’s a peculiar feeling, knowing that the very public persona I presented to the world was merely a facade. Behind the façade, a world of complexities, insecurities, and unrequited desires swirled. Like the waves of an untamed ocean, my emotions ebbed and flowed, touching the shores of vulnerability with every harsh reality.

A certain perception had oppressed me for far too long – the idea that ‘strength’ was tied to indifference, to a thinly veiled secret that one dare not share with the world. It went on to numb emotions and heap silence upon our true selves. Concealing acts from loved ones left feelings trapped like beasts in a cage.

That was a relic of the past I had desperately hoped to escape. Then came the journaling, a comforting shield that blanketed me from enforced silences and subjective spotlight inequalities towards inner-half secrecy-dominated regimens practiced else where.