Here’s Why You Must Reread Your Journals

For as long as I can remember, I have been obsessed with memories, and I never want to forget anything. I’m a writer and a memory hoarder who feels a twinge of sadness when she has to throw a receipt away because it reminded her of the time the guy at Einstein’s remembered her order. As you can see, I want to remember it all. I want to remember how the dust from my sandals got on my futon once I stood on it to reach the last packet of chicken flavored ramen to give to my friend. I want to remember how I rubbed my hands together on a hike in Alaska, curled them into my jacket, and my friend asked if I was cold. All of these small little details, I have recorded in my journals for years because I want to remember no matter how small, big, special, or monotonous.

During Covid, I wanted to do the same even though it wasn’t an ideal time. I wanted to remember how hopeless I was feeling since I was unemployed, how I perfected making iced coffee, or how hard the morning ab workout was that my brother and I did. My head was in a space for journaling no matter how repetitive the days seemed.

For years, every time I finished a journal, I would reread it. Sometimes I would even add words I left out or just edit it a bit. Other times, I would be too lazy and just read the journal cover to cover leaving my mistakes there for whomever the future reader would be to see. I don’t care that they will find out that I sometimes leave out words or am always using the wrong “there”. Journaling is something I started doing consistently on my last day of being nineteen. My roommate at the time gifted me a journal the night before I turned twenty. It was a very fitting gift for me since I was an English and Creative Writing major who dreamed of being a writer. Ever since then, I have been trying to journal my life. As we all know, Covid threw a wrench in all of our plans, but the amount of time I spent journaling throughout Covid has been crazy. This might be a bit excessive, but I usually fill up on average three journals a year. Now, this will sound even more excessive that in 2020, I filled up six and a half journals. It’s almost ridiculous to say out loud, but it’s true. During Covid, I have journaled the heck out of life. I didn’t have much else to do, so I thought I might as well journal.

However, something changed for me when it came to journaling this year. Whenever I wrote on the last page of each well-worn journal, I would try to reread the entries like I always do. Although, this time, I found it almost painful. It was not because my entries were repetitive. I’m thankful for all the entries, but some were hard to read. This year my emotions were running high, and the entries brought me back to how I was feeling. I would think to myself, “What is happening to me?” I used to love rereading my entries, and now, I could hardly stand it.

Eventually, I came to the realization that as in everything, journaling can take different forms throughout our lives. Our likes and dislikes can vary throughout time. I might not enjoy reading back through my entries right now during a global pandemic, but that doesn’t mean I won’t fall back in love with it later.

I thought back to when I first started my journaling journey. At the time, I was depressed and irritated that my college experience was not going the way I had always imagined. Journaling was a space for venting, but six months later, my college experience took a turn for the better. My pages began to fill with fun memories of walking on my friend’s back in the middle of my closet size of a dorm room, playing frisbee on the quad, or putting on inflatable bodysuits with my friend as we jokingly ran into each other.

Also during that time, I started traveling more and became the traveling writer type I had dreamed about. I was doing my two true loves: writing and traveling. The journals turned into travel stories of threading our bodies through a barbwire fence on a beach in England, drinking an extreme amount of hot chocolate at a monastery in France, and walking back to the church camp I was working at from a local pizza place in Colorado with my friends because none of us had cars, and we were tired of eating butter and toast.

In 2020, unfortunately, my entries consist of a lot of uncertainty with a mixture of Covid and the postgrad blues. I couldn’t journal enough, but there were positive words that appeared on the pages as well as jokes that were shared on FaceTime, talks with my mom, how I was actually feeling good about my own personal writing, what my thoughts were on some twentysomething self-help book I had just read, or how amazing it felt to finally see my friends after some quarantine restrictions were lifted. This goes to show our journals can have different focuses at different stages of our lives, but they are always filled with it all. Yes, this year has had some depressing times, but I’ve still had good times that I’m forever thankful for.

My journals that were focused on the good times I had in college still had some entries of uneasiness or fear of how I thought things were prone to feel so fragile. I poured out thoughts of what if the social life that I had worked hard to build would someday crumble before me. In between the travel entries, there are bouts of loneliness and longing to see my loved ones. Every journal shows how nothing is ever perfect. The crisp pages should show the good, the bad, and the ugly because that is when you truly start to see the beauty. I don’t remember just the good- I want to remember it all. That is why it is important to me to write all about what I was feeling throughout the pandemic

Then life had brought us to 2021. Someday throughout the healing, I will find the mindset to read back through my 2020 journals to laugh at the jokes I wrote down, have my heart warmed when I wrote about the birthday wishes I received, or maybe have a good cry to read the many pages of lonely thoughts. Keep journaling and remember whenever you feel ready, reread your journals. They’ll take you back to the time when your back was so sweaty from that mountainous hike, how you slipped on the ice while heaving your trash into the dumpster, how that particular compliment made you feel, and how lonely you might have been feeling during college, high school, or a pandemic. Journaling now can benefit the future you.

Who knows how many journals I will need, but I do know I will have my colorful pens ready to fill the blank pages that come my way and then reread them later.