DJ— Thanks for the input. And, yes, come to think of it, there was a little warning sign—a tickle in my throat.

The bottom line: How cool to have a dress rehearsal for death.

I woke up this morning to a beautiful, sunny day. (I slept eight hours!) All week it’s been gloomy. First snow, which I love. Then rain. Then a dense fog. But today it’s crisp and clear. Glorious. Think I’ll take a walk at the beach later with my mom. (Long Island Sound is only a mile from my house, and my mom lives a mile in the opposite direction.)

After I posted yesterday morning, I spent the remainder of the day reading over my journals from the past two years. For those of you who keep a journal, I highly recommend doing this. Julia Cameron suggests in her book The Artist’s Way that journal writers re-read their entries every three months. I’ve done this in the past, but haven’t taken the time lately. Instead, when I write something in my journal that I particularly like, I type it up and save it on my computer. (My journal itself is written in longhand.) As I was reading, I laughed and cried and was amazed to discover that not one day had gone by where I didn’t express gratitude. Not one. But whereas the entries from the first year, during which time I was still writing and selling the book, contained many references to trust, the second year contained far fewer. So of all the heart-on-my-sleeve, hot-off-the-press comments I shared yesterday, the one about trust rings particularly true in hindsight.

My journal-reading experience, though, has left me with a concern. Because I consider my journals private, I don’t censor myself at all as I’m writing. These journals contain not only my observations of my exterior life, but reflections on my interior life as well. In other words, I use my journal as my therapist. I work out all my “issues” on the page. This means that I’m occasionally putting on paper thoughts about my loved ones—my husband, my children, my brother, my mom—that I would be horrified for them to read. The issue isn't that I'm worried what they'll think of me for saying such things. I trust that my family knows and loves me for who I am. In many cases, I have even talked with them about the very issues I've first articulated on the page, and we've worked them out together. But I don't want to leave them with hurt feelings.

Believe it or not, in the few minutes the other night where I wasn’t breathing and thought I very well might die, I flashed on my journals. No time for a complete thought. Just an “uh oh!” I don’t want to destroy my work—I mine my journal for flecks of gold that I use in my writing. I also don’t want to start censoring myself. But on the other hand, I really don’t want anyone reading them after I die. Am I being silly?