On keeping diaries and journals
A life recorded.
Today’s post was inspired by Celeste Scott’s wonderful reflection, the importance of journaling.
We keep a journal or some other people call it a diary for different reasons. For me, one of them is to record exactly how I felt or thought about a situation as I was experiencing it, so that someday in the future I become a witness to myself that there has been a shift, a change in my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, ideas. Sometimes I’m even surprised to read what my thoughts or feelings had to say in that moment in the past. A journal becomes like a map then, collections of beautiful tapestries of different seasons of my life and my states of heart and mind. If you are like me, sentimental, a daydreamer, nostalgic, journals can almost feel like a relic. In one way or another, it’s like reliving a moment from the past.
I sometimes wonder where will all these journals be kept though, since I still like them physical, in ink and paper and in my slanted handwriting. Every time I move, new home or new city, my journals will always use a considerable amount of space in my bags and in the rooms that I’m moving into.
I have tried getting rid of some of them, like the ones I kept in the years 2013, 2014, and maybe a little bit of 2015. Those were the ones I burned at the back of our old house in Dodoma, when we were moving to a new city, Mwanza. Burning them had more to do with what I wrote in them than my concern for space. In a scale of 1 to 10, maybe I regret doing that at a rate of 4.
Some people are afraid to keep a journal because of chances that someone else might read it without their knowledge. I know some people have read my journals without me knowing. I’m not saying this out of mere instincts but out of factual clues. That thought almost makes me feel a tingle in my spine sometimes, that someone has peeked into my raw and honest words without me ever knowing it. But shame on them as well for crossing a boundary they knew all too well wasn’t theirs to step into. So when I ask myself if this is still worth it? In this life and hopefully if we would still need journals in the next, I would say absolutely yes!
Some of the journals I kept had names, my current one is called Toren-sluis, named after a bridge in Amsterdam, because I’ve been obsessed with that city for some time now. I’ve also had a journal called Half which came from a playful idea that it was my better half (sounds a little sad I know, but I don’t want pity right now). And another called Zing after watching Hotel Transylvania 1 because they really had me at “Barabin-yooo, Sakazin-yooo” or whatever that Dracula actually sings on that last part.
“Your life is worth recording” I read that in a book once. And keeping a journal, might be a great way to see why.
So here is a peek into sections of some of my journals!
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I love love journalling, Samsung Galaxy Tab saved me a lot of notebooks😂. I still journaling in ink when I'm writing Mandarin though