Put it on a shelf . . .

Finally, my room is clean. My laundry is done. I can now begin packing for tomorrow's flight. Needing a break from cleaning, packing and journalism junk, I've decided to discuss something I discovered about myself today.

My life is my bookshelf. It's a cheap light-colored IKEA shelf, but it epitomizes me as a person. Up until today, it was overflowing. There was no room for any new books, and all the ones I needed in there didn't fit. It's like my life. I kept trying to put interesting things in there, but nothing seemed to fit. Until now. Done with teaching, LMU and TFA, I cleaned out the un-needed binders, professional development books and such. Everything that needed to fit, now does. It now has room for more.

More than a metaphor, it also says everything about who I am, where I've been, what I love and where I dream of going. There are three Bibles (one of mine, two from my dead aunt in which I've found notes 6-year-old Jayna wrote her), Shel Silverstein books, a book on NY nightlife, East Coast photo books, many books of non-fiction, fiction books that are supposed to sound like they're non-fiction, a book about living in our 20s, books and magazines that I've been published in, 1/2 a shelf of journalism and writing books, a personal journal, my WriteGirl journal of writings, a notebook of poems I wrote in high school that nobody else has read, scrapbooks from college, a book on educational inequity, a dictionary. There is one book about love -- a memoir of a journalist who goes searching for the five men who broke her heart. There is a guide to screenwriting. There is another memoir of a man who's been paralyzed and left unable to speak who is looking back on his life -- he is not wistful; he is content. I love it. I've read it three times already. Writing about it, I think I want to read it again.

So, yes, as much as I hide who I am and what my dreams are, anyone can really find it out. You can peruse my bookshelf (or read my blog).