think of this an online journal/ To the one straggler

a journal that may be perceived by a large percentage of the world. I will tell you it can be so inauthentic if you start to alter your words because of fear of how you may be misunderstood.

It's also difficult to concentrate with a bouncing 8 year old girl behind you playing Fornite who wants to show you the "potty dance" that is currently locked.

I do believe a writer can censor his words with publication in the mind. Publication means to make public. Someone can read my journals posthumously but thats about all. God blessed me with the art of poor handwriting so I could disguise my secrets from my mother when I was a teen.

Why would we alter our words in front of an audience? Some authors choose to restrict taboos and wisely so. Everyone is a critic. We have to face our own critics that sit front row and who you come home to and cook dinner for and live with us like ghosts before we face the unfamiliarity of new faces and attacks.

But some authors brave the elements bare chested yowling to the wind. A period suggests a pause in speaking. And as you get wiser I hope you pause more. My sentences are rarely complete as are my thoughts. Mea culpa.

There may be times you fantasize about speaking to a full crowd and at the end realize its an empty hall. And in our minds we wrote our magnus opus only to realize it has the value of toilet paper.

Ultimately, to write is for the intention to express something to someone, even if it is only one-you.