Dear Diary...

Last night, watching someone's 'reading my old diary entries' video prompted me to do the same. I got out my old journals, and wanted to find some resemblance with my old self. In the pages, I discovered dream anecdotes, meditations on my current reads, brief allusions to the stress of an essay, and of course, declarations of being in love. Sure, there was something naive about it—as if I was aware that I would look back on these one days, I seemed determined to narrativise my days and feelings—but there were some sentiments that I felt truly thrived from being written down.

Writing down your feelings in a journal is certainly cathartic. The younger me seemed to realise this. But there were moments when I spoke about stresses and sadness in a neat little sentence. That's not true, I thought. You were feeling much worse than that! Why didn't you go into detail, younger me, on just how hard it was? Perhaps there is always that barrier to get through, as writing down your feelings will acknowledge them, and in acknowledging them, make them real. 

Reading my past diaries did more than make me giggle. It made me nostalgic for past memories (I spoke of the last day of school, for instance, and finishing my exams!). I was grateful to have made the decision to journal when I did, because it will always me a nice little memory for me. So now, with all this in mind (the catharsis and nostalgia of it), I have decided I want to get back into journalling. 

Since my days in high school, journalling has become a much more commodified practice. You can buy dream journals or mood trackers at any stationery shop. There are YouTube videos and TikTok accounts dedicated to manifestation. And, arguably the most helpful: there are hundreds of journalling prompts online to help you know where to start.

Journalling can help you articulate your feelings or map out your goals. Though you may not necessarily (and people seldom do) share your entries with other people, talking about your feelings to yourself could help you to eventually talk about your feelings with other people. You could write a gratitude journal, to remind you of your favourite things, or write down where you see yourself in five years time, as career and productivity motivation. 

Or, if you're like me, journalling is so much fun to just track how your current self thinks, acts, and writes. In five years time, you might pull out your diaries (just like I did) and appreciate how far you've come. It may be a longer process to navigate how to fully release your emotions into words. But journalling is such a great thing to do for your mental health, that there should be no rules or restrictions to how you want to articulate your thoughts.