I Read 20 Years of Journals and Found the Same Sentence on Every Page

Different stories, different years, different handwriting. But always the same ache underneath.

I pulled the box down from the closet last spring.

Twenty years of journals. Maybe more. Leather-bound ones, spiral notebooks, those fancy ones with gilt edges I bought myself as gifts.

I thought I was being a good spiritual student all those years. Processing. Reflecting. Doing the work.

I opened the first one. Then the second. Then the tenth.

And in every…