SACRED TERRITORY

(From Facebook.)

It's the wee hours of the morning and I find I have to again resort to this keyboard over a realization brought forcefully to mind by something I saw on TV just after going to bed. It triggered a realization that happening upon Facebook allowed me to resume something that really began early in my life but was interupted.

I really began what I'm now doing early in my life, in my early teens. I started writing down in a small notebook every day my thoughts and experiences. It was a journal or diary and something I almost instinctively began doing. That didn't last long for a very good reason.

My dad started reading and enjoying what I was writing!

I did not intend or want my private thoughts broadcast to all and sundry, so I immediately quit writing in that little book and never resumed until I wrote my abreviated autobiography in the mid-nineties. How much more extensive that work could have been had I had all those years of private thoughts and experiences to resort to.

Dad had no malicious intent. Nevertheless, when he took the liberty to peruse my most intimate thoughts and feelings, he ventured into sacred territory he would have done much better to stay away from. He stopped my instinctual need to write down and analyze what I was thinking and experiencing for decades!

Now, I feel safe to put on here whatever comes to my mind. It really matters not a bit to me what anyone might think. Really, there isn't much that goes on in my mind or life that I'd have to hesitate to share with anyone these days.

Not so to a sensitive teenager who's going through one of the most turbulent stages of life where they're struggling to find their way in a confusing world of new feelings, experiences and a great deal of emotional turmoil. So, if you have the temptation to invade some young person's privacy for your own curiosity or entertainment, don't do it! That's sacred territory you're invading!

Concentrate instead on being the kind of non-judgmental and totally accessible mentor that person will have no fear of confiding in. I know that's a tall order, but try anyway.

And, MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS!