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About My Blog
I’m CJ. I write about discipline, endurance, grief, and becoming who you are through repetition, not perfection.
Category: Daily Writing Prompts
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During the summerI was becoming a juniorat Indiana University,I found myself studying abroadin London. Breathtakingin its truest simplicity. Three weeks spentwandering the inner and outer edgesof a city layeredin history, violence,and quiet triumphs. A memory that lives unconscious—as if the experiencenever fully lived at all.London outside me,but homeloud and rattlinginside my head. I was not…
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Name your top three pet peeves. A litter bug—someone who scatters their waste across the world as if the earth were not the very thing holding them up. I will never grasp the mind that wounds its own home. A person who cannot speak with emotional intelligence—who stumbles through connection as if feelings were foreign…
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How do you relax? I don’t. Even when the world is still,my mind races—a million nanoseconds a minute. No time to separate realityfrom daydream,anxiety from the real picture. I run from what’s hard,tough it outlike a boxer’s last secondsbefore the bell—body tired, fists up. Dodging mental bullets from the left,emotional grenades from the right. At…
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Happiness often sneaks in quietly, wearing the faces I love most. It looks like my Momma Greatness, steady and unwavering in her love, and the four-legged companions who’ve wrapped themselves around my heart: Oso Boy, Sassy Girl, Chester Boy, and Opal Kitty. Each one greets me like I’m the best part of their world. Some…
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What derived from Carly became Harley, and then it was CJ. It was 2001. I’d just turned seven. I was in first grade at Grissom Elementary School—one of the few schools in the area still raising young scholars. Luckily, I’d had a lot of amazing teachers who helped bring me up. Three still hold a…
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This post is a response to the WordPress Daily Prompt:What’s the oldest thing you own that you still use daily? I know these daily prompts are usually attacked with more authentic, off-the-cuff language. But as a writer with a million emotions flooding my frontal lobe at any given moment, I can’t help but respond with…
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Authenticity—a deep-rooted stem forcing its way out,cracking through surface lies,corroding the outside world’s perception.A unique stamp.Signed, sealed, and delivered. For years, I wrestled with the word.I claimed authenticitywhile performing an edited version of myself.But my true self—dogmas erased,stigmas disintegrated into dust—emerged, little by little. Recognition began to cease.Not everyone knows what to do with someonewho…
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It’s a beautiful morning. The sun gleams down, golden and soft, while the grass sways gently in the breeze like it’s breathing. The air smells of freshly cut grass—earthy, light—with a whisper of warmth tracing my skin. Inside, coffee brews. Its scent winds through the house, rich with notes of caramel, chocolate, and roasted nuts.…
