Of all ways to begin a journal, “Dear diary” certainly seems like a salutation cop-out. But if your New Year’s resolution did not turn out as planned and instead you are steadfast to self-help decrees in honor of the new semester, resolve no more. Maybe it’s time to embrace the cliché and bring on the gut-spilling, emotion-ventilating, hand-cramping habit of penning down your thoughts and experiences in a journal.
Unfortunately, diaries hold a bad rep in pop culture. They are drenched with connotations of vapid secret-spilling as the teeny bopper pours her heart onto the pages of a notebook, only to be unearthed in an episode of humiliation when the younger sibling cracks it open and releases its secrets into the wilds of middle school.
But we aren’t talking about diaries here, we’re talking about journals. Journals that are written by respectable writers and thinkers. The kind that are displayed some day in the New York Public Library, or used as historical evidence. Evidence that, even if it does not matter to people stalking around the library, is extremely valuable to your older self as you yearn to rewind back from the present and remember the details of your past experiences.
The mind and memories cannot always be trusted, and it takes recording your thoughts — and doing it quickly — to prevent the neglect of details that are easy to discard.
Elana Schlossberg, a freshman majoring in theater, thinks that journals are like magnifying glasses into someone’s life that they never intended to share.
“I like to read my friend’s blog which is her online journal,” Schlossberg said.
Schlossberg personally chooses to write on her Tumblr, which she keeps for herself.
Keeping this type of writing close to you allows you to look back on experiences with clarity, and can be a safe place to reveal “things you wish you could do or say in real life,” according to Elizabeth Ventura, a freshman majoring in neuroscience.
It is easy to be lazy when it comes to keeping a journal — 10 extra minutes of sleep can be more alluring than re-living the day and writing it down. But you live through each part of your life only once, and you may forget what it was like before your reality became your reality. Even the small details you did not think you would miss, like your first hall meeting or that before you knew your best friend, she helped you tack posters up on your dorm room wall, could be the things you wish to remember most.
It’s refreshing to take a walk in a pair of your own shoes that have gone out of style, or even no longer fit.
In regards to “Dear diary,” there could be productive paths to take, like “Dear Dr. Me” or “Dear Me on the Forbes 500 list.” Or there could be worse paths to take, like “To the Future Mrs. Channing Tatum.”
Maybe that is just the passageway you will someday appreciate after reality has sunken in (that Channing Tatum is already married) and you wish to revisit the bliss of naiveté, or to see who you were when you belonged to another time and place.
So despite anticipation of more paper writing and assignments to finish, consider the small things you will be grateful you did for yourself when you were younger. The gift of remembering may be one of the best things you could give to yourself.