I like to call myself a lifelong journaler. My childhood entries include my takes on various pieces of literature (namely Harry Potter and The Magic Tree House), poems about my favorite mythological figure (Hera, of course), and my thoughts on my sixth birthday (it was coming up). I have so many entries across dozens of notebooks that span my whole childhood. But the thing is, until now, none of them were ever filled. As a kid I’d ask for a new journal, for documenting a trip or the first days of school, but at no point did I keep a centralized, complete journal. I’d intermittently journal days out of my life in middle and high school for the sake of remembering them, but it was never a part of my daily routine. What I’m left with is snapshots of a full picture that’s already passed me by.
This year, though, that has changed: I have finally, for the first time in my life, journaled consistently over a significant period of time. Ranging from four to six times a week, I sit down with a pen and a journal to write what is happening in my life: events, feelings, plans for the future. The result is a gray Moleskine full from cover to cover with my recountings, thoughts, and ideas from the past year of my life. It’s almost strange to have a physical product holding a year of life, but I’m thankful to have a record of the most extraordinary year I’ve had yet.
I started out journaling daily when I spent six weeks in Germany as a student in the summer of 2019. At that point, each day was so exciting and new that journaling was easy. The days were pages of thrill and novelty and fun; I now treasure my entries from that time. But more than just a way of recording good times, I realized then that writing was also a source of release. When my mom called me two weeks in to tell me that my great uncle had passed away, I found that writing in my journal was a way to mourn from five thousand miles away. Though I’d journaled through tough moments before, the craft took on a new meaning and importance as I was severed from my family, on my own for the first time. The grieving process gave new significance to my sometimes hobby, and that was something that stuck with me.
In the fall I bought a journal, and I resolved to write in it as often as I could, both to remember my senior year of high school and to work through the changes and turmoil I knew I’d face. Now, a year later, I’m starting college and things are so incredibly different than I’d imagined them to be. But with my journal, I can track how things changed, both outside and within. I’m grateful, both for the outlet and for the ability to measure myself.
The pandemic changed how I wrote in my journal. Throughout February, I largely treated it as a log, a method of memory. I was the happiest I’d been in a long time, and my entries from early this year are for the most part recountings of the moments I spent with my friends and the silly teenage things we did. In March, there was obviously an immense shift. I wrote about my sister unexpectedly coming home from college, the slew of new anxieties that came with quarantine, and my hope for the future. The entries became less about what I was doing and more about what I was feeling. Though the past six months have seemed painfully stagnant, my journal reminds me just how untrue that is. Highs and lows plenty have defined 2020, and they will undoubtedly continue to do so.
These days, my journal serves as a tool and a reminder to make the best of my freshman year of college online. These are days I may or may not want to remember, but I’m not going to make that call just yet. However it ends up, my journal helps me to live a life worth writing about, even in the strangest of circumstances.