Dear Diary… why I still believe in journaling
One of the things I most enjoy about the new year is buying a new journal. I always have whatever journal I’ve been scribbling in filled up by the end of the year, but I think I’d buy and start a new one anyway, because of all that it has always symbolized to me. All those fresh, clean pages, and the thrill of not knowing what will be written there by the end of the year. I sometimes wish I knew. Crystal ball syndrome or something. I’d want to make sure to allow extra pages for the good days, and of course, to know where the bad stuff would be cropping up so I could tear those pages out and throw them away first.
I’ve kept a diary or a journal since I was old enough to write. My earliest diaries are full of my huge, crooked, childlike printing, recording important details of my life like the school field trip and what we had for supper. The journals from my teenage years and early 20s, of course, are all full of angst and suffering, as if I knew the first thing about angst and suffering. It was real to me at the time, though, so while it might make me shake my head now, when I read back over the pages, I can see the times where I struggled my way to growth.
These days, I use my journals to sort out issues I’m having with my writing (you don’t even want to know some of the names I called Ariel when she was giving me fits), as well as my spiritual growth, my emotional well-being, and my dreams. I was talking with a friend the other day about why I still journal so faithfully, and my answer was simple: it balances me. As I go through each day, life throws stuff at me with both hands, and if I don’t know how to deal with it immediately, I mentally stick it into a box, and my journal-writing time is when I sort through everything.
Journaling is my favorite kind of writing because it’s so free and uncensored, just a stream of consciousness that moves from my head through my pen and onto the page. No one edits it (thank goodness), no one tells me it’s too long or too short or too, you know, insane. Some of my favorite posts on this blog, like this one about grace, actually started as journal writing as I worked through something that I’d been mulling over. Journaling lets me be honest with myself. Wait, let me rephrase that. It makes me be honest with myself. It makes me dig deep to find the answers I need, to clarify the things that matter to me, to look myself in the eye and say “Okay, now what?” It’s not always comfortable, having to face my thoughts on the page, but it always leads to growth – if not immediately, then eventually.
They’re road maps of my life, my journals, showing me where I’ve been and offering clear insight into where I want to go next.
