Write a note to yourself,
you’ll be glad that you did.
It’s a reminder of the past,
a piece of your thoughts frozen in time,
unaltered by fickle emotions.
It can be a diary, journal, or post-it.
Not a blog, never a blog,
for the public eye foils honesty.
Write one from yourself, to yourself, by yourself.
Stash it away, and be sure to read it later.
I wrote that poem, A Note to Yourself, for a school literary magazine earlier this year. I rarely write poetry, but I felt (and feel) passionate about this topic.
I usually post important details about my life here on Exposay. The crux of this post, however, happened before Exposay even existed. Last year, starting January 1, along with my new year’s resolutions, I instituted a secret policy. I started keeping something resembling a journal. Using the application MacJournal, I wrote myself a note every day for the last 365 days. In a journal, analogous to a file folder, I created twelve journals corresponding to the twelve months of the year. In each of those journals, I wrote between 28 to 31 entries, corresponding to the days of the month.
I use Christmas Break as a reflection period of the previous year. Keeping with that theme, and listening to the advice in my poem, I read my entries for the last year. My first entry was simple enough…
So, this is the new year. I’ll chronicle it, methinks. I resolve to have a record of the entire year.
Continuing on, I wrote about anything that I felt that the future me would enjoy reading. In other words, all of the work writing my thoughts down was for this moment, the reflection period. A few trends:
- Mock Trial was hard, very hard. In fact, my junior year of high school could be defined by Mock Trial, seeing as though I wrote so much about it. Re-reading how worried I was about certain trials, I felt nervous for myself, even though I know the outcome.
- I was really stressed out during my junior year. I mean, really stressed. It’s a tough year.
- Relationships fell apart and built themselves back up again as time went by. Time really does heal all.
- Going back to the places of my childhood was one of the best things I’ve ever done.
- Writing a Constitution (in committee) was difficult.
- Wisdom tooth pain is bad. I still have to get those taken care of.
- I started writing college essays earlier than I thought.
Some days I wrote empty comments like, “nothing happened”, and others I wrote several paragraphs of deep intellectual thought on philosophy or analysis of my life. It’s those longer posts that I really enjoy, but the smaller ones at least give me a sequence with which to relive the year.
I’m going to continue to write my daily logs. Only, this year, I plan on writing more. I urge you to give it a try. The perspective it gives you in the future is invaluable.
I’m an advocate of every form of journaling, even though I’m terrible at doing it consistently.
Of course Mock Trial ruled your life. It rules all.
Journaling takes a lot of commitment although it’s definitely worth it. And nobody likes junior year.
Christine, very yes. I remember you telling me about your junior year while I was a sophomore and I couldn’t believe it was as bad as you said it was. But, well, it definitely was.