Childhood Closets and Journal Pages

For years now, I’ve had a lot of things stored in the closet of my childhood bedroom in Florida. Everything including awkward middle school pictures, my first dollhouse and kitchen tools that I don’t have the space to store in my Manhattan apartment were hidden in that closest.

My dad has begged me to clean out the space for a while—a task I’ve had zero desire to take on. While visiting last week though, I went on a rampage. I opened every single box in that closet and threw away a lot. There were so many things that I hadn’t realized I kept, including every journal I’ve ever written.

When I found them, I thought, “wow, I’ve got to read these right now.” So I organized them by date, earliest to most current. The first began in the seventh grade. My english teacher, Mrs. Johnson, required us to write in one and it was the first journal I ever kept.

 

I was hoping I’d stumble upon my next great idea or a clever passage, but unfortunately, there weren’t too many of those. I did learn a few things about myself though. Like in 1999, I really liked writing in short sentences:

Then there was that time I wrote about having an argument with my friend Nancy. You can read my nondescript description here:

Apparently my feminist roots were grabbing hold in 2002 when I shared my thoughts on couples and money:

Oh, and then in 2005, I had that revelation that many single women have at some point in their lives:

But this is what made pouring though my 19 different journals worth it. Finding empowering passages that still resonate with me. In this entry, I responded to a series of questions. One asked, “Identify the things that make you different from others.” Here’s what I wrote as a freshman in college:

I still struggle with self-confidence and try to remember that I’m not a mess or a screw-up. But I am unique. I have qualities that other people don’t. I am enough. This seems like the hardest lesson of all, one that I’m still working on. It was interesting to see what I wrote then, what I had forgotten about myself and how I can learn to see it again now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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