Molly’s Journals

Recently, I have been going through the journals that Molly kept during the last years of her life.

“Going through” the journals doesn’t really get at what the activity is; “mourning with the journals” describes the experience much better.

There are incredible gifts within the pages: notes about how much she loves her family and friends and the recognition that she has help to deal with her challenges.   There are days that I cling to those entries for sanity.

But, oh there is pain too.   She describes a “parallel world that coexists with my mind but not reality.”  Describing that parallel world, she writes about herself as “an agent part of a corporation called The Company.”  She notes that her boss is “Danny who I apparently love.”  She explains that The Company is “sometimes considered terrorists because we had an incident years ago that killed 3 civilians and 2 officers.”   She goes on to say that “I recently retired from the agency but am currently working with Danny to find a new president of the agency and watch the gang that killed Mark and others.”  Geesh.    The entry was written in pencil…   but later she had gone over it with red ink, noting “Yeah, I’m insane.”

In another entry she notes, “I wish I could get a terminal illness so I could live life to the fullest.”    In a list of prepared questions for her therapist (which I don’t think she ever asked) she included things like, “Do you think I’m some sort of supernatural/non-human being?  Partially?”  And also, “I’m capable of killing someone, does that make me crazy?” 

Molly describes herself this way, “I live in 2 worlds, does that make me crazy?  They clash, making me hyperactive, paranoid, depressed, untrusting, cruel, apathetic…  driven by my head not my heart.”

This is a child who played sports, was in plays, got good grades, was unfailingly kind to her parents and had some good friends.   This is a child who was challenging to raise at times, but was never in trouble, did not use alcohol or drugs and learned, quite early in life I think, to hide her real life experience.  These journals were never meant to be seen.

My deepest sadness comes from the realization that in some ways, I never really knew Molly.  I think its impossible to really know someone who won’t be known.  But it still hurts.  It really, really hurts.