On Why I Journal

My first journal was a planner.

It was pink and squishy, filled with riddles and crossword puzzles between days. I’d write down my homework – Read one chapter of the Island of the Blue Dolphins – then underneath it, write two lines on what I did that day. They were simple, bare bones accounts.

“Today, I rollerbladed with Sylvia and Andrew. I ate dinner with Sylvia’s family. Today’s title: Rollerblade” Titles would add another line to the entry; as if I needed a headline to further simplify my days.

My second journal was flat and thin. I punched a hole along the edge of the notebook and used a bellybutton ring as a makeshift lock. When I first found the ring on my elementary school pavement, I was oblivious to its actual function. I saw the ruby-studded silver object, piqued by the way the top could unscrew from the bottom, and promptly pocketed it. That journal was full of such discoveries – learning and unlearning meaningless facts of life.

My favorite part of the journaling process is finishing a notebook. I close one chapter of my life and am given the chance to begin another – maybe on ruled paper this time, because keeping straight lines on blank pages is too cumbersome and my life needs more structure, or larger pages, so I can paste pictures of my growing group of friends.

A friend once confided she secretly wished people would discover her journal, so they could finally discover how insightful and brilliant she really was. She said she’d want them to go through all her diaries when she died.

I for one would rather see mine burned. Writing with a readership in mind distorts my entries. Whenever I imagine a crowd of friends and family crouched over my journals, reading and giggling, I start editing myself out. I become hesitant to write full names, writing less about the people and more about the weather. Still, I don’t make a big deal of hiding my journals. They’re stacked in chronological order in the bottommost drawer of my room back home, next to the scarves and hats I never wear.

I hardly ever write to record something. My diaries are more psychology books than history books. In any way, diaries offer one thing: blank pages and a chance to feel normal. You write down your traumatic memory there and you confess your love on another page and you never have to bring it up in real life.

Consciousness is equal parts blessing and curse. Journaling offers a level of escape. A chance to feel in my own, grammatically and politically incorrect, raw and unedited.