Why I Journal?

I would probably go batshit crazy if I didn’t!

I found outlets for my thoughts and my frustrations in a lot of ways, but mostly through my creativity. And as you guys know, writing and pictures/videos are the ways I express myself creatively the most.

But no matter how much I write and share, my journaling is something that I do just for me. It’s raw, unfiltered, and the best way for me to get my thoughts in order. Very often, I find that writing down the things that make me frustrated or emotional is the best way of getting it all into perspective. By getting it all down my hands, through the pen and out on paper, it gives me just the right kind of distance to be able to more sanely look at it all.

I started writing my first diary when I was 11 years old after I had read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, and I was just so fascinated by the fact that I was able to get an inside look into someone else’s personal struggles and thoughts. So I found myself curious as to how my thoughts and feelings would look on paper.

And here we are, 20 years later, a lot of journals filled out, and I’m so grateful that I started.

Journaling has changed a lot over time, and I would probably cringe CRINGE cringe if I started reading my teenage ones, so they’re stored away in a safe place. And one thing I do know for sure is that I will keep on journaling till the day my hands are no longer able to put words down on paper.

It has saved me from my chaotic mind so many times. As I said in the beginning; I would probably go batshit crazy if I didn’t!

Do you journal?

Dear Diary

I’ve had a personal diary since 1998. I was eleven at the time and had just read The Diary of Anne Frank for the first time. My father took me on a trip to Amsterdam where I got to see her house. Her story and that diary touched me in a way that books rarely do. It was so personal and so moving. To read someone else’s diary is something you rarely get the opportunity to do, and to get the inside look of a little girls life in the middle of such a cruel war is heartbreaking and mesmerizing at the same time.
I had already discovered my love for writing long before 1998, but Anne Frank inspired me to put my most personal thoughts down on paper. For many years I wrote down my joys and my sorrows. Every exciting news and every heartache. I wrote about my dreams and my goals. At around the age twenty I stopped writing. I can’t really explain why, but I did miss it. That private and quiet moment where I could go through my thoughts and my memories.
So last year I started writing a personal diary again. When feeling like I had fallen into a black hole, when everything was turned upside down, I grabbed my pen and I put it all down on paper. It was brutal and it hurt, but it was also a relief. A way of coping and learning. I got to know myself a little more by daring to admit my fears and my mistakes. My dreams are still many and I write them down as I go along.
I don’t think writing a diary is for everyone, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I’ll be writing for my own sake for the rest of my life. Not so much to document what happens in my life, but because it makes me a happier and more balanced person. Maybe it’s even somewhat therapeutic.
They will be the real story of my life, the way that no one but me can tell. Totally honest.

Dear Diary….