A couple of weeks ago I pulled out my journals and started looking through them. I've kept journals pretty regularly between the ages of 13 and 24, when I started writing a blog in Farsi. Then I started writing another English blog and then this blog because the other blog was not anonymous enough.
Then I started not writing any more. I don't know why.
Reading my 14 year old thoughts was both interesting and unsettling. Both very far and very close.
I wrote mostly about every day events. Whom I met that day, where we went, how I felt about boys, my parents, my friends, etc. I have to say, I was a bit of a boring kid. I was always worried about getting good grades and I was into many boys at the same time, without actually hooking up or anything.
And then there was the code language. Some form of made-up symbols that I had invented to hide the top secret stuff from whoever with access to my diary. I'm pretty sure no one ever read my diary, certainly not my parents. I remember that I let a friend borrow it once and a boyfriend too.
There were many names in those pages that I have no recollection of: school friends, boys, teachers, neighbors, etc. And there were events that seemed so dramatic that I have no recollection of. I guess for a teenager everything is dramatic.
But some emotions were as raw as it was described in my writing. Some even seemed understated. I looked at some of the names and the feeling suddenly rushed through me. I remembered small details, like the scent of someone. Or the vague dimple on his cheek. The event was far. The impression of the event, the memory of the emotion, was very near and real.
Rejection, passion, frustration, sexual instincts, heartbreak, anger and excitement. They were all mixed together in those pages.
I wonder if I will ever write a journal again. The act of holding a pen and writing for minutes, or hours, seems a little foreign to me now. And the fact is that I am not as open with myself as I used to be. There are things that I don't even want to think about. And there are feelings that I like to deny.
If you deny the truth to yourself, can you write an honest journal? Can you live an honest life?
Then I started not writing any more. I don't know why.
Reading my 14 year old thoughts was both interesting and unsettling. Both very far and very close.
I wrote mostly about every day events. Whom I met that day, where we went, how I felt about boys, my parents, my friends, etc. I have to say, I was a bit of a boring kid. I was always worried about getting good grades and I was into many boys at the same time, without actually hooking up or anything.
And then there was the code language. Some form of made-up symbols that I had invented to hide the top secret stuff from whoever with access to my diary. I'm pretty sure no one ever read my diary, certainly not my parents. I remember that I let a friend borrow it once and a boyfriend too.
There were many names in those pages that I have no recollection of: school friends, boys, teachers, neighbors, etc. And there were events that seemed so dramatic that I have no recollection of. I guess for a teenager everything is dramatic.
But some emotions were as raw as it was described in my writing. Some even seemed understated. I looked at some of the names and the feeling suddenly rushed through me. I remembered small details, like the scent of someone. Or the vague dimple on his cheek. The event was far. The impression of the event, the memory of the emotion, was very near and real.
Rejection, passion, frustration, sexual instincts, heartbreak, anger and excitement. They were all mixed together in those pages.
I wonder if I will ever write a journal again. The act of holding a pen and writing for minutes, or hours, seems a little foreign to me now. And the fact is that I am not as open with myself as I used to be. There are things that I don't even want to think about. And there are feelings that I like to deny.
If you deny the truth to yourself, can you write an honest journal? Can you live an honest life?
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