By Remy Road
I'm eight years old. My idea to fill my bedroom floor with the bag of fall leaves outside (to make it feel like I sleep in the jungle) has just gotten shot down and I'm furiously drawing the tree house plans in my journal for my great escape.
I'm ten years old, I was moved to a different country and I desperately miss my old life. My journal becomes my best friend,
I'm 12 years old. I can't decide who I like better, Nick, Jason or Pierre?! My journal helps me list all the pros and cons of each of them so I can decide who I am going to spend two hours on my 90's pink light-up phone with every night while my Mom yells at me to go to bed.
I'm 16 years old. First heartbreak. Ben Harper is playing on repeat. My journal listens to me in a way I am too self conscious to express to my friends. Journals make good tear absorbers.
I'm 22. Living in Mexico. Saving Street Dogs. My journal is proud of me.
I'm 26. Living in Colorado. Journal thinks I drink too much. I yell at journal. Spill my red wine all over journal. Journal not impressed.
I'm 27. California. Rehab. Journal listens to me get sober. Journal reminds me not to lose hope.
I'm 32. Vermont. I get my Masters. Journal listens to my dreams of world domination and social change.
I'm 36. I've lost a lot of people. I am forced to confront the traumas of my journey...Journal starts to help me heal.
So I got a little vulnerable there with you guys. Journaling has helped me with that. No matter how different your story is to mine, there is a good chance that if you are reading this, journals have long been a source of healing for you as well.
Journaling helps us get clear on the complex mess of what is going on in our hearts and minds and distill it into words we can touch and feel. It helps us access the most vulnerable emotions and have an avenue to process them through and out of us. Journals can be a source of comfort, when it feels as though no one could possibly understand or hold all of you.
While the whole world changes, the one constant any of us ever have is the relationship we have with ourselves. The truth is, a journal is really just an extension of ourselves.
