Dear Diary

Believe it or not, I really wanted to write in diaries as a child, but I never really stuck to that daily habit. That daily habit turns into a weekly habit and that again turned into a special occasion-only habit. Case in point, I didn´t write in my diary as a child.

However, I did manage to dig up my old diary drafts and I just wanted to lay out what exactly changed between each diary and each entry. I believe that by tracking my entries from the past, there is a pattern and maybe something I could discover about my past self.

As a child, I thought that writing diaries were a great idea since it allows you to relive the past. There is nothing I adored more than discovering gems from the past and reminiscing about the fun old times when everything was simpler.

Writing a diary back in my childhood days was also just such a huge trend everyone was jumping on. Owning beautiful diaries and writing the most exquisite diary entries. It was in my school the next big thing which everyone including myself wanted to be a part of.

Eventually, I did go out and bought a beautiful diary with a lock since diaries are meant to keep secrets. On the first day of owning a diary, I was so excited and began to write. The second and third days were similar, but progress slowed on the fourth day and the following.

It just occurred to me that the life I lead was not too interesting so I could write about it constantly and there were some things from my school day I would rather forget than document in the diary for future me to read.

Therefore, I decided to only write about special occasions. However, I soon ran into another issue, special occasions are special because those aforementioned occasions don’t happen regularly. And after a while, I forgot that I had a diary to document those special occasions for future me to reminisce over.

Eventually, the diary writing stopped completely. Up until this day the diary is still mostly empty with some pages filled with special occasions and some others just autographs, which I managed to get since meeting a music band is special after all.

That infamous diary of mine now also contains for an unexplainable reason a food diary where I documented my food intake so I can adjust my diet a bit. Guess what habit didn’t last long. Since I stopped the food diary too.

After the food diary, the diary just became an idea diary where I would note down ideas whether for a product or a hypothesis. It is just a place where I would let all my ideas flow onto the pages of the diary so I can get back to them in case I need another idea.

However, just because that diary ended it certainly doesn’t mean that my diary journey ended there. Back during my time in school, I was really into diary-formatted books such as the diary of the wimpy kid or dork diaries.

I just loved reading about the shenanigans those characters would get up to since their shenanigans were just so much more interesting than any shenanigans I could get up to and their shenanigans distracted from real life so that is a huge plus.

Some pages of those books are filled with doodles and I wanted to do the same so I make the whole doodle diary schtick my own. Writing passages with small doodles depicting the situation from my eyes. That idea sounded amazing in my mind.

But when I tried to put that on paper, I was shocked in the worst way possible. I cannot draw so that puts my whole doodle diary idea in the bin because I couldn’t see any future where this would work out and look good.

So, with that doodle diary idea scrapped I was right back at square one. No diary and no interest to continue. Frankly, I remembered that I left it at that but after doing some digging through my old belonging, I came across another diary of some other sort.

Nope, it was not a travel diary even though that would have been a fabulous idea to capture the fun trips I have taken over the years. All those experiences now are just mere memories drifting in the mind until remembered or completely forgotten.

The diary being a notebook where I just let out my anger. And no it is not a place where I rip out pages as part of my anger management but it is just a diary where I would write about the things and people who dearly annoyed me.

As I was flipping through the pages, I found out that I am kind of a very unforgiving person back then. I hated people based on the smallest ills they committed towards me. Sometimes it was severe such as discrimination. Some other times it was just they ignored me on purpose.

In that diary, I wrote about all the people who I have feuds with whether active or passive. A book where I would just note down all the complaints about those people who have wronged me in one way or another.

Even though that diary does not date back too far into my past, there are some people I remember strongly and still, mildly hate and some others who I have completely forgotten about. I swear I sometimes can´t remember the person I was writing about.

Now I see that most complaints I had were nothing permanent since bridges were either mended or burned down completely. Most of the people in that diary, I don’t have their contact anyways so I have no idea why I keep that diary around.

But looking back at it, I wonder if I have grown or if the people who are in my life now are not as terrible. Frankly, I don’t believe I have changed in any way but it also seems that people in my life now are more bearable.

Either way, I don´t possess strong hatred anymore so I am going to say that the diary worked to a certain extent. In the moment of utter anger or grief, it just helps to relieve those strong emotions and made me more rational so I could be more subjective and leave the past behind me.

Many people in my life back then just encouraged me to write down anything that sparks strong emotions within me so I have some time to cool down before the next encounter and it just helps that I don’t take those emotions out on innocent others.

Turns out that didn’t only have one complaint diary but two. Nevertheless, I will hold myself back from revisiting the past because there is no need to stir up drama and there is also no need to go through all the pain again.

Both of those diaries are as of currently unfilled. There are still a lot of blank pages at the back, but I am sure future me would come up with a solution to fill those pages without opening up old wounds again. If I do throw it away, I would make sure that those pages never see the light of day again.

After some time of not complaining about another human soul in that diary, I just left that sort of diary behind. I became better at emotion management and tend to keep to myself than spill the beans so to say, which is why the diary served its purpose and it was time to move on.

At about the same time, I became somewhat obsessed with my fitness since every teenage girl will go through a body dysmorphia phase eventually. No matter how short or long that phase is. For me, that phase was rather long.

During that time I was also into simple doodles and wanted to recreate the Pinterest notebook pages. This is why I had a habit tracker diary where I would try to exercise more, cut down on junk food and do something creative every day.

Within those pages, there are also some pages which include bucket lists and things to do instead of snacking. In that heavily decorated diary, I also started my birthday tradition of writing letters to my future self (read the article, my little birthday tradition here).

However, just like the many diaries which came before, I didn’t manage to fill all the pages of that diary either. After some time I just got bored and forgot about the diary completely. I knew of its existence but I did nothing to fill out the book.

Leaving diaries unfinished somehow became its own little tradition because no diary of mine is ever written until the last page. However, I am interested in the continuation of the decorative habit tracking diary since leaving the diary as it is seems like a shame and a waste of a wonderful start.

Then, I went on a few years without a diary of any sort. Until the lockdown when I picked up one of the old half-empty complaint diaries and started to write pages upon pages again. But mind you this time it is not about other people and my issues with them. This time it was about me.

During the lockdown, I was interested in psychology just like how I was interested in cryptology the year before that. A scientific subject which piques my interest and expands my knowledge about science just a bit more.

On my trip down psychology lane, I found out many things. Amongst the knowledge is the fact that you should never self-diagnose anything because things can get severely out of control. Nevertheless, reading through the DMS5 for fun is still somewhat fun.

That fun read led me to the conclusion that I might need to seek professional help and many people seem to agree with my conclusion. My mental health is just fine, but it turns out that seeking help can be more helpful than first anticipated. However, that is not the point of this article, so I digress.

During that time, I just got to thinking about what personality is and what part of me is me. So the former complaint diary became a philosophical psychology diary where I just write down everything I don’t quite understand about myself.

There were some traits I didn’t understand for example my paranoia and using a little bit of psychological insight I could explain that the paranoia and distrust just came from past traumas ergo the schoolyard bullying.

That went on for some time since there was a lot I wanted to understand about myself and people in general. The question, I still couldn’t understand until now is who I am. What part of me is me and what part of me is not me? I am still working on that but in other areas, I have made progress.

Just like all my diaries up to this point, I eventually stopped because I just don’t know what I could try to understand next. There are so many things and they just overwhelmed me so I just stopped. Mere mortals are not made for a complete understanding of themselves.

That is my diary journey up until this point. Five unfinished diaries filled with many scribbles. However, then I realize that I am wrong. I have six diaries since this blog is somewhat of a diary too. A page where I could dot down my discoveries and document my experiences.

This is a far cry from a traditional diary but remember a diary is just “a book in which one keeps a daily record of events and experiences” according to the dictionary. May I argue that even though my blog is digital I still record events and experiences even though I don’t do so daily basis.

I know I can argue definitions all day since blog entries are not diary entries. For instance, my blog entries are more rooted in my past experiences than my present experiences but I am making an effort to change that.

Either way, after six different diaries' incarnations, I am glad I found one that really stuck with me and didn’t die within the first months after its creation. Maybe in the future, I will continue my other diaries or find another kind of diary. Who is to say?