Journaling and I have had an interesting journey together. Even though I am 13 years old, journals have played a huge role in my life. This is my story.
I started journaling around preschool. To tell you, I was not a genius and this action was not voluntary. My first journal was a notebook with big lines with dotted lines to help young children with their handwriting and big blank boxes for space to draw. I remember holding a pencil writing short sentences and drawing pictures of girls playing around.
Starting from that time around, I wrote journals for four or five years. These journals simply consist of the things I did that very specific day and repetitions of "Today, I did" and "It was fun". I remember my mother bribing me with candy or promising me to buy something big whenever I didn't want to write. At that time, I had no idea what these journals were for and just did what my mother told me to. This period of writing produced around eight journals.
I stopped journaling around third grade. I moved to Korea that year, and writing in notebooks every night fell out of habit. There were a few attempts made, but they are lost in notebooks lost behind piles of paper. At that time too, I reflected shortly on my elementary writing and asked my mother a few times about why I wrote so much. She always replied in short answers that I would be like Anne Frank. I believed that writing journals was just the same as writing school assignments and believed that fact for many years.
My family and I returned to the States after I finished fifth grade. I had recently hit puberty and gone through many changes, making me a different person than my past self in the US. To be honest, I regret not writing journals at that time in Korea. It was a very special experience that was is very important to me, but I will never be able to see through those lenses again. They only exist and memories and few photos that were taken at that time.
One year in sixth grade went fine until the pandemic struck. As we started to quarantine, my mother, suggested that we start journaling again to keep a record of this special part of history. So I did. I must have been incredibly bored because most of my entries consisted of long summaries of the K-Dramas I have watched. Still, after a few months, I gave up. I just didn't really want to write.
A few months ago, I stumbled upon an article in the Time magazine I was reading. This author wrote her experience of writing journals, and as she looked back at them during the pandemic, she is able to reflect and learn about her past self. Reading this article, I thought about how journal writing again would help me organize my chaotic thoughts and save them somewhere. This author also mentioned that she started journal writing at the age of 13, so as a teenager, I thought it was the perfect time to start journal writing again.
I started in January 2021. In just a few weeks, I found this passionate joy with scribbling along the lines with a dark blue pen. Being able to write down my thoughts and reflect on them helped me become more thoughtful, more satisfied, and calmer. Whenever my emotions went on their high-ride roller coaster, I would pick up my pen and journal and write. This allowed me to not become blinded by my impulses but be more rational in solving my problems.
Now, my journal is not just a place for my thoughts, but also poems, stories, reviews, and more. Even this post you are reading right now was drafted from my journal. Through writing, I learned that journaling is a form of finding yourself with words. I have been able to look at myself and confront situations inside me with more confidence and it is changing me to become a better person. I am excited to see what will happen in the future with my relationship with journaling and I hope for the best.
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