Journal Beautiful

I have a compulsive drive to write down everything about and around me in a journal. I tend to forget a lot of things, so the way that I remember things – be they names, French vo­cabulary words, class notes, or things going on my life – is to write them down. Over time, by looking back on what I’ve written, I have come to realize that what I do, think, and write has intrinsic value.

My experience with journals has been varied. I’ve received journals as birthday pres­ents or bought my own, written in the first few pages, and then stopped. Months later, I’ve picked up the same journal and started again, only to stop. I began keeping a serious journal when I was fifteen, making a commitment to write at least two sentences every night for a month.

When I first started out, I wrote in my journal so that I could feel good about myself. I was like a first-grader dutifully fin­ishing a sheet of homework, proud that I had done the simple task I was assigned. However, as time progressed, writing in my jour­nal became more than that. I had days where I couldn’t wait to write in my journal, and throughout the day I’d think of little phrases or thoughts I’d specifically want to include. My enthusiasm for writing in my journal got to the point where I stopped thinking about what I was doing and instead thought about how I was going to record it. Although the purpose of a journal is to record for oneself the pass­ing of time, events, and thoughts, the nature of the journal shouldn’t be to write and forget to live.

After the month was up, I kept going be­cause I enjoyed writing, and I’d reread what I had written and couldn’t get enough of it. How­ever, as time went on I wasn’t quite as con­sistent about recording my thoughts and life events. I sporadically wrote in my journal for the next year and a half.

I didn’t realize the value of keeping a journal until the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I went to France for three weeks with a program sponsored by my high school, and before the trip began, I made a commitment to write in my journal every night, (which I kept.) I stayed up all hours of the night in order to record everything I could remember about the day: what we had seen, how I had felt, what I had thought, how I was getting along with the other members on the trip. I slept less than my travelling companions, but I now have more than pictures to augment my memories of the trip.

As I look back, that was my favorite time to write in a journal, as well as one of my favorite trips so far. We spent three weeks travel­ling the country, swimming in lakes and rivers, visiting French monuments and theme parks, spending a week­end with a host family, and overall having a good time. However, there were occurrences that I’d rather forget, but nevertheless made it into the journal such as the journey back home when we missed our connecting flight and returned home a day and a half later than expected.

Six months after my trip to France, I finished my journal. It was an auspicious event; it was the first journal I finished that had more than eighty pages. When I finished the last page and turned over the cover, I felt part of some­thing larger. Like the journal, I was complete. And not only had I accomplished something, I had done it completely for myself. A part of me rested in those pages. And afterwards, I real­ized that I had found a source of self-worth, of wholeness, of confidence. The events of my life, hand-written in that journal, were striking, my perspective on them was important, and I realized for myself that I was beautiful.