what i learned from 10 years of journaling: the story of the story of my life

for me the start of a new year means the start of a new Journal at least that's how it's always been since I was 13 years old I don't feel old enough to say that I've done anything for a decade really but here we are opening up yet another book that'll be by my side for the next 365 days I started keeping a journal in January of 2014 with the intention of filling it up to the last page by December 31st I'll tell you right now that didn't happen I probably left a good 50 pages

or so blank at the back you might say this is wasteful after all my young teenage self decided to splurge on this fabric lined button-class gold Edge notebook and I didn't even get to the end well in my defense I did fill most of it up also this was kind of a Monumental year for me I mean I graduated middle school and just started my freshman year of high school it was kind of a coming-of-age moment okay sorry if I didn't have time to jot every single thing down but over the years I got a

bit better at keeping things up I didn't journal every single day and I still don't there are some months where I have a good streak going and other months where I check in just once like oh right here's all the stuff that's been going on since I last wrote I experimented with different notebook forms like using lined paper blank paper grid paper this year I'm trying out dotted paper for the first time it's riveting stuff right I also tested out different brands and even tried splitting the year up into three smaller journals documenting four months

of the year each one year I used this plain old composition notebook I had this lying around because it was supposed to be my grade 12 chemistry lab notebook but then I dropped the class so free Journal right well I hated writing in this notebook because honestly it's ugly and it wasn't intentionally Chosen and after that I stopped feeling bad about splurging once a year on a pretty notebook because if you're gonna carry something around with you for an entire year you should probably make sure that you like it but anyways what was I talking

about oh right Monumental year well I mean how important can the life of a 13 or 14 year old really be all I did was go to school come home and be full of angst does that make quality literature I don't know most of these journals are filled with day-to-day dread to-do lists or brain dumps of all the things that were going on or worrying me on the first day of high school I drew a map of the school in my journal with my classrooms Mark so I wouldn't get lost sometimes I would write out

homework answers in my journal instead of on scrap paper just because clearly it's not very meaningful to me now but it was at that point and it's nice to be able to open up these books and ReDiscover the little mundane parts of my life at the time not knowing what was to come in the grand scheme of things other parts were not so mundane I documented events and developments with friends family relationships enemies all that juicy stuff the more the time passes the more I love reading back on these parts and seeing how my life

has changed with the people around me there are some names in my journal from 10 years ago that still appear in my journal today there are others who come and go some whose entire presence in my life start to finish are documented Within These pages in my earlier journals sometimes I would refer to People by initials instead of full names because you know artsy or whatever and one of the most Bittersweet things I find happening when I go back to reread these journals is that sometimes an entire entry is written about someone so important to

me someone affecting my life so deeply someone who is taking up every waking moment of my life at the time and now I don't even know who those initials belong to is that crazy I don't know it's kind of sad but also kind of nice right how eventually things will all pass even the bad stuff that's how I like to see it anyways [Music] then again it can also kind of suck there are things I struggled with at 14 that I still struggled with at 18 and that I still struggle with today there's younger me

writing to a future self who I know is going to look back and read hoping that they're in a better place and there's me in the present reading past me struggles and thinking wow I'm really glad I can't go back and talk to her because I don't know what I would say I have answers to some things but I guess other things take longer than 10 years to figure out like most people I obviously have lots of pictures and videos from throughout the years too and videos can never really capture how you were feeling or

what you were thinking in that moment no matter how much you try to remember the act of recollection itself changed the memory in my journals though I can go back to exactly what I was thinking with the knowledge I had at the time reading how I felt what I thought and what stood out to me even though my memory of the moment may be different I can look through the eyes of my past self for a second to really understand these different periods of my life journaling can obviously be very therapeutic but I've noticed that

what this means is that a lot of journal entries happen when I'm upset angry sad or alone and working through something negative I mean it's not like I pull out my journal in the middle of the club when I'm having a great time you know and sometimes when I forget to journal for a while it might actually be a good thing since I'm out there living life and I don't have too much bothering me but recently after years and years of writing I've noticed that some of my favorite entries to reread are the ones that

reflect on the good moments the ones that recount and cherish how happy how excited how loved how grateful I feel about something in my life at the time sure I might have pictures or videos of these moments too but I might not remember the little details of the day the little moments that really make things memorable something might have happened since then which would forever change my memory of that moment so I've been trying harder to write down the good moments too not just the bad ones I don't really know what these journals are for

I just started it one day and now I'm here right it feels like I'm writing a memoir in real time covering what could be considered the last year of my childhood my entire experience through High School through University and now beyond that I'm sure there might be other uses for it in the future that I can't even think of but for now it's for me it's for sometimes analyzing other times romanticizing my life and I don't see a reason why I would ever stop so here's to a decade of writing a decade of talking to

myself a decade of committing to understanding myself and also a decade of committing to The Artsy tumbler girly bit and absolutely refusing to go digital every year is literally a new chapter but this one's just a little bit special in my books