She pulled out her blue journal full of crazy thoughts and dreams. She was crushed, and awake, finally, after months of being in a dreamland. She needed to separate what was fantasy from reality. She tore out the most revealing pages from the journal, that beautiful leather bound journal.

Tears rolling down her face, she crumpled them and threw them in the fire. Her words went up in flames. She looked at the tattered book. Its first three signatures in shambles. What to do with it now? The journal was too nice to just throw it away.

She looked at the book. She’d only written on less than 40 pages. There were over 200 pages remaining. She decided to just start over. She found where the signatures were bound to the spine and carefully cut the three damaged sections from it. She tossed the scribbled pages into the fire. May as well start fresh.

Less than a quarter-inch of the interior of the spine was now revealed. Painstakingly, she adjusted the new first page to line up against the interior cover to mend the gap. The book could be mended more easily than her mind or her heart.

She wanted her pages back, but there was no retrieving them from the ashes after the flames consumed them. Now what remains, a blank journal, sits in her bag, beckoning her to come back again.

It was an act of desperation. The thoughts were raw, felt real, creative, and sentimental. She’d grow to regret its destruction, but it was the best she could do at the time.