I was getting frustrated the other day that I have about a million and one journals I've half started and never finished. I continually start new journals leaving a thicker and thicker stack of notebooks on my bookshelf. But at that same moment, I realized how grateful I was that I even have records of my younger years.
Most memories will eventually leave you. With no journals, I would forget every blessing I've been given in an instant. The best and worst moments of my life have been written down in the pages of my journals to be remembered till the day I die. Today I am thankful for the hours I can spend reading through the past eight years of my life. I am reminded of why I am me and what shaped me into the person I am today.
Let's start with the names written down on these endless pages.There are people who made it into my journals that wouldn't know me if we crossed paths on the street. Heck, I wouldn't know them if it wasn't for that one time they complimented my hair in middle school or that one time they insulted me and my friends in high school. Like I said, these are the people who have shaped me.
But more importantly, there are the people who I now know stuck with me through the thick of it. One would conclude that I must have gone through a personality change or two from the first journal page to today's. How did my mother keep loving me through my ever-changing attitudes? How did my father have patience with the drama a teen girl creates for herself? How did my sister not strangle me during my pity parties? And how did my friends stay with me despite my own efforts to find every flaw they possessed?
Then there's the grade school crushes. Those boys were my world. Apparently I was in love with a new one every month. But how did I even know what love was back then? News flash, I didn't. And to avoid later embarrassment, I'm just going to assume I still don't fully understand love.
By continually listening to me, my journal became my best friend. I would literally tell it that. And yeah, that's hilariously humiliating, but at the time, it was the truth. Teenage girls are ruthless, myself included. Journaling was my way to vent. It put things into perspective, usually by showing me my own immaturity.
To my younger self, everything was a big deal and I made a big deal out of everything. The most dramatic days of my life five years ago sounds like a piece of cake today. The better half of my entries from sixth to eighth grade start with, "Why does everything have to be so hard?" I can laugh at it now, but my middle school mind assumed the world was caving in all around. Her family was impossible to love, boys were everything, and there were more friend issues to deal with than stars in the night sky.
As a writer, journaling might just come a little easier to me. I love to put my thoughts on paper; I could write for hours on end. Maybe you think that journaling merely shows the progress of your penmanship over the years, nothing more. But I assure you, it's so much more than that. Do yourself a favor for your future days and take a moment to write about the terrible/horrible/wonderful/delightful day you just finished.
And if for absolutely no other reason, keep a journal for quality comic relief. My best line to date:
"He stares at me in class. The kind of stare where it is a long daydream stare, like a daydream about me and how much he likes me." — Somer Servais 2008
