A life on paper

It is the chronicle of my life, documenting the ups and downs, the major tragedies and catharses as well as the smaller and seemingly meaningless everyday occurrences.
I’ve kept a journal since I was 11-years-old and recently decided to dig all of the dusty old books out of storage and read through all of them starting at the beginning.
Reading through my life reminded me once again of how grateful I am that I took the time to write it all down. I admit that I do enjoy reading over certain positive experiences and in a sense, reliving them. But it’s the difficult experiences, the pain and the adversity that I can truly benefit not only from writing about, but also reading it again.
As I read through my own trials and tribulations, I watch my handwriting change from the neat printing, round letters marching across the page, to the haphazard and frantic cursive, to what it is today: a slightly less chaotic and more legible cursive.
Though less obvious at first glance than the change in the handwriting is the change in the subject matter. In junior high, all I ever wrote about was the boy I currently had a crush on or what CD I wanted to buy when I got my allowance, stupid, shallow pubescent fluff. My entries from that time were often misspelled, written in pink or purple ink and punctuated with exclamation marks and doodles of hearts and stars. I read over them now and while I marvel at what a dumb kid I was back then, I can’t help but smile as I feel a nostalgic tug on my heartstrings.
As I grew older, my entries got a lot darker. Gone was the superficial seventh grader with her sparkly lip gloss and silly daydreams and in her place was a severely depressed teenager who was terrified of what was inside of her own head and used writing as a way to get it out.
Those journal pages are stained with tears and sometimes torn form my pen gouging into the paper so hard. It was during those times that I am now eternally grateful that I had an outlet, something to pour my tormented thoughts into. Who knows what I would’ve done otherwise?
While all of my journals and the history they contain are precious to me, it is the ones with the anguished and hopeless entries and cathartic journeys that are among my most cherished possessions. I know now there was indeed and light at the end of that very dark and narrow tunnel.
I don’t write in my current journal as much as I would like. Sometimes it just seems like more work on top of everything else. But I always regret not taking the time to do it, when another momentous event passes by without being properly documented or a bad day just gets worse with no relief.
Though we may not see each other that often and our relationship can be a bit strained at times, my journal remains one of my closest friends, one with whom I know I can always be completely honest and share my deepest darkest secrets and who I can always trust to be nonjudgmental and unconditional in return.