A review by rustedtrains
Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton

challenging emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

This book was there when I needed it to be. When you find yourself on the precipice of solitude, I urge you to pick this book up - or your epub, or pdf, truly the semantics of the matter are irrelevant, all that matters is are the words. May Sarton wrote from the inside, created from the destruction and the subsequent creation of the self, like many artists do. 

For a long time now, every meeting with another human being has been a collision. I feel too much, sense too much, am exhausted by the reverberations after even the slightest conversation. ... But the deep collision is and has been with my unregenerate, tormenting, and tormented self.

For the introspective, the contemplative, words like this are not to be taken lightly. They are to be taken inwards and stewed gently. I have, for many, many reasons, felt alienated and alone for much of my life. I thought I was an adult only to wake up one day and realized I was very much a child still. I find myself bracing for impact with every touch. Sarton reaches out and soothes with the relatability to the aching individual with Journal of a Solitude.

I had many times when I needed to stop, pause and take a breather through the text with how thoroughly it choked me, with the weight of the words almost physically hanging in the air around me. 

I have written every poem, every novel, for the same purpose--to find out what I think, to know where I stand.

I use writing to find a clear head - this journal is not only relieving, a breath of fresh air when you did not know you were drowning, but it is kinship. It is finding a like-minded soul. This can save a solitary individual much, I know it can, because it did me.