Writing Your Own Story: Keep a Diary
By Adalyn Lowe
I will always advocate for someone keeping a diary; I personally am thirteen diaries deep with a terrible amount of evidence of my middle school-self sitting in my room. My diary journey began at eleven years old, when I brought a miniscule dollar store notebook to summer camp. I’ve kept one ever since, lined up on my shelves in the rainbow order I’ve carefully curated. Everything’s in there— old concert tickets, drawings my cousins gave me when they were toddlers, polaroids, dried flowers, descriptions of my first kiss, awful math tests, summer vacations, opening nights, and every moment in between.
It’s wonderful it is to have your life documented, not just through pictures and half-forgotten memories, but through words you wrote when the memory was bright and clear! I think teenagers in particular have a tendency to get swept up in the adolescent nature of it all, thinking their youth will carry on forever, their memories in tow. But as an upcoming senior, I’m beginning to really consider the fleeting nature of it all.
I don’t want this article to be some thinkpiece about growing up (who really wants to read another one of those) because diaries are more than just documenting your memories. By writing down your mundane and acknowledging it as completely your own, you are writing your own story! I think diaries help people remember that the only people who dictate their lives is themselves. As corny as it is, you are metaphorically the author of your own life. Reflecting your thoughts, the day’s events, and opinions help you see your life from a story-sort of view and therefore help you think of it better. I personally, think I’m a better person because of my diary-writing habits.
Writing your own story can be depicted in lots of different ways. What kind of person are you? I’m the type to write and paste in related trash from the day, but that doesn’t have to be you. Someone particularly artistic could draw accompanying cartoons to their day— and even watch their art style evolve throughout diaries! Someone particularly lazy could just keep track in bullet points and sub-bullet points if they’re feeling extra fancy. You could address it to the diary, or someone else important to you. Make it colorful or completely black and white. Add stickers! The possibilities are endless, and wholly begin with you, a writing tool of choice, and an empty notebook.
You may be thinking your life is too boring. I struggle with that too— it’s difficult to write consistently when your days are on such a mundane-feeling schedule. Here’s what I try to keep in mind: if a historian were to uncover my notebooks and flip through, I hope they’d be interested in the mundane nature of the average teenage girl (I also try to paste in lots of receipts for them). Secondly, a day is full of small moments that you don’t realize until you’re writing them down. The funny joke your friend made, a cute cat you saw on the fence— those things don’t happen every day! These are the sorts of things that should be acknowledged.
No one is in charge of your words and life except you. Write it down in a dollar store notebook, a Moleskine, or a journal stuffed at the bottom of your drawer from three years ago and chuck it across the room if you’re horrified at yourself. I always think that’s a step in the right direction.
