Birthdays are a time when I feel particularly nostalgic. With my last birthday marking the fact that I’m in my twenties now, I felt the slight sense of dread within me weigh a little heavier. I always found myself thinking of the things I was doing last year: wandering around a large campus as a wide-eyed freshman, exploring new opportunities, and participating in fun events. Now, I was a sophomore/senior in college, with no choice but to focus on the next stage of my life: actual adulthood. My peers and I were constantly doing schoolwork, making projects, and gaining internships as a way to put our feet in the doors of the working world. While these things are for the best of our futures, the fun times eventually dissolved, all our days being booked with work.
My birthday thankfully landed in the middle of the Thanksgiving holiday, giving me a minor break from school before heading into finals week. While trying to get some well-deserved rest, I happened to glance at the bottom of my bookshelf and notice the prominent lines of my old journals, leaning against one another in chronological order. I realized that I never read through them retrospectively. A part of me didn’t want to read through the weird phases and opinions that I had, but I was also curious. How have things changed? Are there things that have stuck with me? Was I happy overall? I figured as a way to reward myself for getting to twenty, I could just look back for a moment or two and potentially revel in better times.
I picked up and flipped through my high school journals first. There were only two physical copies: my freshman year being contained in a black-and-white striped planner, and my sophomore year in a flowery composition notebook. In both journals, I was amazed by the way I captured the details of my seemingly mundane school life, from the way certain teachers droned on in classrooms to how the thunderstorms made music in the sky. It was refreshing to see how passionate I was about writing at that age. However, I did notice a decline in my energy over time, especially in my sophomore diary. I was constantly bringing up my annoyance with certain assignments and classmates and discussed how the scenarios and characters I created in my head felt more comforting than my real friends. Even with some moments of optimism sprinkled in, I made it clear that I was trying to “sort through my feelings,” by writing consistently. While I was aware that high school had its bumps here and there, I didn’t exactly recall the number of times I was feeling miserable.
With my middle school journal, a big turquoise book that said “Amazing Things Can Happen,” on the cover, I braced myself for what I was about to read. The tone was mostly sassy and caricature-like, something that I most likely picked up from reading multiple book series like “Dork Diaries,” and “Dear Dumb Diary.” I tried to appear more grown and sophisticated since I was “no longer in elementary school,” which made my entire being cringe. While my writing seemed exciting and fun, especially with the little doodles I made on the margins, it was muddled with a lot of problems. Not only were there multiple spelling errors, but also issues with the relationships around me at that time. A long-term friendship of mine ended horribly, preteen boys couldn’t help but tease me, and I was living with my extremely problematic mother. She couldn’t bother to take me to school on some mornings, filled my ears with lies about my dad, and even more heinous actions. It honestly stung to see how much I had put up with her behavior because she was “less strict” and “more fun” than my father. While I was still fairly young, I saw the naivety in my words.
There were even some minor scribbles before I hit puberty. In a small pink book, I had written three short entries from almost a decade ago, when I was ten. There weren’t a lot of details outside of getting an English bulldog, having a sleepover, and going to Rock Springs, but I had managed to pair drawings with what I was describing. I had also written and drew all over the inside of the covers, calling myself “Jolina the Star,” and dedicating it to “the generations of my children and friends.” There was even a harsh note that I had put in there when I was a preteen: “Dear past Jolina, YOU’RE STUPID.” It’s something that I’ve written out of pure embarrassment, but I would never hold those feelings against my younger self now.
After skimming over my writing as a whole, I realized that I was always trying to reminisce about memories. Upon this discovery, I remembered how I felt last year when I was supposedly “happier.” There were times when I was alone on a huge college campus and thinking back to high school, involving myself in theatre and chorus and my first time going out without my parents. Even then, I was trying to think back to middle school, elementary school, and even my years as a toddler, when the responsibilities were minuscule or nonexistent. It’s a rabbit hole that we dig ourselves into when we want to return to the past.
As I tucked my journals back into the bookshelf, I came to another conclusion. I had also always looked forward to the future, especially when I was younger. Past me couldn’t wait to be in my position, imagining how I’d conquer the world with whatever I chose to do. I had imagined being a rockstar, a writer, an actress, and more. Even in my high school journals, I had written how I couldn’t wait to go to college and be in a more “academic environment.” While I am more fearful of the future than ever before, there are endless possibilities laid out in front of me. Of course, there’s getting a job and my place, but I can also travel the world, encounter interesting people, write a novel, learn three languages, and more. These are things that versions of my past self couldn’t do, and here I am, just a few moments closer to those opportunities. Who am I to let them down now?