Last weekend, I had the chance to visit home for the first time in a while, and unsurprisingly it turned into a major nostalgia fest. On top of all the childhood books and stuff I went through, I ended up stumbling upon some of my old journals, which I’ve been keeping regularly since late elementary school.
And oh, boy, was that a blast from the past.
I ended up realizing a lot of things, actually.
I’ve gotten better.
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One of my lifelong dreams has been to be a writer, and as such a lot of my old journals had snippets of stories I used to write. I mean, sure, the story of the giant who came to realize the city was really cool will always be a charmer, but my stories were so terrible.
The thing is, though, that a lot of the time I find myself stressing about how bad I am now, thinking that I’ll never be good enough—well, here’s actual physical proof that I’ve gotten better and that I probably will keep getting better. And if that’s the case for my writing, why can’t it go for everything else in my life I’m insecure about?
I’ve gotten worse.
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I’ve always remembered my middle school years as the worst of my life in many ways—I mean, they were so terrible that eventually I just convinced my mom to homeschool me for eighth grade.
And yet, reading my journals again, I was so upbeat a lot of the time. I mean, sure, I needed to vent a lot, but the rest of the time I kept focusing on all sorts of good things in my life—new movies, the chance to play with my cousins, awesome presents.
Since middle school, a lot of great things have happened to me, but my outlook on life has become so cynical. Why? What does cynicism do for me except de-motivate me? It doesn’t make me smarter, doesn’t make me more woke, just makes me feel…down.
There are so many little things
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What’s really interesting is how easily I was able to fixate and elaborate on small details. I would analyze movies, talk about holes in fences, and spend an embarrassing amount of time writing about how weird hair is.
It’s easy to get caught up sometimes in the big picture or overthink, and lose touch of the smaller things in life. The fact that my younger self was able to do so easily (even if it was on the oddest little things) is pretty amazing to me.
There are so many big things
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On the flip side, I had a really tiny worldview. I would talk a lot about the world and about life, but that was always in relation to me—how I wanted to travel, how there were so many things for me to do.
I don’t think that kind of thinking was ever wrong. Not really. It helped me be optimistic, helped me dream big. But it was also so self-centered, as if everything was about my happiness.
For all the marveling on what a big world it was, I sure didn’t seem to consider any of the people in it except one.
And that’s fine for middle schoolers, since that’s an age where so many changes are happening that it’s impossible to really do anything else…but there comes a point when your life becomes so settled down that it’s really your responsibility to step out of your own conceit and think about others.
Which really brings me to my last realization…
Middle school kids are full of themselves.
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I wrote so many “life lessons” in there that turned out to be total BS, it’s sad, really.