Dear, Me / Love, You
Two decades of journal entries
Please note: This essay discusses depression and eating disorders.
More common in my early journals and less common in recent ones, is the topic of “not having written in a while.” It comes as a tail between my legs, in phrases like “bad writer” and “shame, shame.” Appropriate, given my lack of newsletter-ing over the last couple months. Bad writer. Shame, shame.
For me, “not having written in a while” is usually a symptom of something larger. Writing is an internal census. What’s going on in there? How are we? A cursory glance at my first decade of journals would yield the answer: “Not great!” For years, I rarely wrote when all was well. I only sat down to untangle a problem, to air a grievance, to literally grieve.
It was regular life, varying degrees of intense and mundane. There was the death of our family dog, the time I switched social circles in seventh grade because the girls were mean, getting into college and not getting into college, my best friend having a boyfriend and me not having a boyfriend. My senior year, the eating disorder, dropping out of school, questioning everything.
Inside this regular life, ordinary things often hurt as much as extraordinary ones. Writing became associated with suffering. I was a writer because I was up against something. I was a writer because I noticed. Most of all, I was a writer because I felt so guilty and awful and unlike myself every time I was not writing.
Those who teach writing often warn against reading your diaries. Julia Cameron (who I will henceforth affectionately refer to as “J-Cam”) the author/Hierophant behind The Artist’s Way and “morning pages,” (three pages of hand-written, stream of consciousness journaling that she encourages students to do upon waking) is staunchly against rereading old entries. They serve as a creative dumping ground, she says, not to be revisited until months or even years later.
J-Cam be damned (except never; I love you J-Cam!) I came back to my journals recently with a purpose. An assignment from my new therapist to get in touch with my “inner child.” I was supposed to dialogue with this little person, to write as her, an eight or ten or thirteen year old, and to respond as me, a thirty-one year old with (supposedly) more wisdom.
At first, I was hesitant. What would we (me and me) talk about? I’ve been mumbling to myself forever. What was left to say?
Turns out, a lot. The results have been revolutionary, emotional, and very healing. Slowly, I’ve started to develop a love for that young person. It is a pure and adoring love that I have never been able to access before. The other day, I thought about how my mom was the age I am now when I was born, and wondered: is this how it goes for our generation? Instead of having kids in our early thirties, we finally learn how to take care of the little ones inside of us?
If that’s all bit too mushy for your taste, don’t worry, I will not subject you to my inner child dialogue here. J-Cam would agree with this decision. Too fresh. But, in the process of excavating a younger self, I did find some “wow, I haven’t written in a while!” entries. They span over two decades and chart fun changes in handwriting, and all the previously mentioned hurdles. Maybe you will see some of your own journey them, too.
Age ten. I haven’t written in a while because I am ten. I hate my teacher, Ms. Kelly, and in this entry I theorize she dislikes me because I’m “not Irish.” Ms. Kelly was from Ireland, with a thick accent and almost translucent hair. In my memory she was humorless and impatient. She was probably just tired.
AHHH, LIFE. Age thirteen. A pattern emerges where I don’t feel like writing but I write anyway. This is one good habit among a slew of not-so-good-habits that will soon follow.
I haven’t written since December. Our dog, Rosie, died rather suddenly of a brain tumor in November and my previous entires are about how much I miss her and how sad I am. By the new year, I am better and writing again.
I get my period and…MONEY!! I learn how to use ellipses but not how to spell (ture)...My brother contracts a mystery virus and is hospitalized...I breeze over this, even though it is extremely frightening….I get a B in Spanish…Perfectionism begins to take hold…I apply for the high school that I will soon attend, Holy Names Academy (HNA)…Yes, it’s as Catholic as it sounds…More Catholicism on the way.