MY JOURNEY IN JOURNALLING

Heyyyy It’s Ib. How have you been? How’s home? And for those of you that have started going out (not me🙂), how’s outside? This post, I have a feeling, will be one of my favourite posts. Why? Because I loveeee telling stories. So sit back and relax cause

It’s storytime!!!!

The journey of my journalling started when I was 10, in 2012. I was starting secondary school and my dad just came back from London. He bought me a Jacqueline Wilson Journal and he said, “I want you to write everything that happens to you everyday in it, everything new thing you learn and whatever you just feel like writing”. I was very excited! In my mind, I was like “Omg I have a secret diary. I can write stuff only I would see” so that really made me excited but the problem was that everyone wanted to see my journal because it was really pretty.

Here is a picture of what it looks like,

That is the exact copy of my ex-journal. Yeah, so everyone wanted to see it cause it wasn’t like a plain kind of journal. It had like short stories, random doodles and stuff. So everywhere I went with it, people wanted to see it and I couldn’t say no because I had just started secondary school and some of them were my seniors and some were my friends. Long story cut short, I felt I needed privacy with my “diary” so I stopped showing people and eventually, someone stole it.

I was so sad and very upset about it. Plus, the book isn’t sold in Nigeria, you have to order it and that upset me the more. Anyways, I told my mum to get me a random diary because then, I had formed the habit of writing. My mum got me a blue hello kitty diary with a lock. I didn’t like it like the first one though but I still appreciated it. Then one blissful day, I was walking to my class after my afternoon siesta and my English teacher called me and seized my diary. She said and I quote, “Diaries aren’t allowed”. I personally think she just didn’t like me…

Then my dad got my siblings and I matching spiral notebooks and a pen. This was in my senior year. I continued journalling but suddenly I stopped. I think it got tiresome and there were a lot of things I had to do in senior school so I just kept forgetting.

Now now, don’t yawn! We’re getting to the interesting part.

So recently I started journalling again and it has been so surreal that I just want to share with you the reasons I think that you should definitely have a journal.

Journalling doesn’t have to be a “Dear diary” or a “Dear whatever”, it could be anything you want it to be. Personally I write like I’m addressing myself like “Ib, you’re probably going to forget this so I’m writing it so you’ll remember when you read this” because there are events or happenings that at the present, you would think you would never forget but then, you eventually do. That’s one of the things I love most about writing in a journal. There’s this tingling feeling you get when you’re reading your past journals and things you forgot start to come back to you. It’s really really nice.

Also, I get to see myself grow and see myself progress. One thing I’m always so sure of is that 2018 me is not 2020 me, same way 2016 me wasn’t the same as 2018 me. I see the growth mentally, physically, spiritually, in everything! If you don’t keep a journal or like just something you write on from time to time, how do you see yourself grow? Honestly, I just can’t imagine. Like how do you keep track of your life? I, for one, know that there are decisions that I took years ago that if it was me now that was me then, I definitely wouldn’t have and that makes me happy and really proud of myself.

Everyone that reads my posts knows that I specialise in having one on one conversations with myself and I wasn’t lying when I said it has helped me alot but sometimes not as effective as writing down in a journal. I’ve had conversations with myself that I have forgotten but when I write it down, I get to go back to it. Also, I’m the kind of person that when I’m really happy or sad or angry, I like to write notes or letters. If we’ve had a major fight before, then you definitely know this. I think it is very very therapeutic to pour out your feelings down on paper. It’s soothing, like the entire load you’ve been feeling just went on to the paper. You know when you’re angry and you can’t really pour out your feelings on anyone cause it might look like you’re crazy or you’re overreacting and there’s just no one you can talk to, the paper’s got you, dear.

Honestly, I feel like there’s this stereotype around journals that is very false. Most people feel that “Journals” or “Dairies” are childish stuff that only little kids do but really it’s a whole much more than that. Journalling has helped me in so many ways and I just honestly want to thank my dad for instilling the art of writing in me. My dad has loads of journals for every year and he takes really good care of them and that inspired me to want to keep having a journal as well. My dad doesn’t do the typical”Dear diary”, “Dear me” stuff but he writes really important stuff in it and I’m really sure it has helped him alot.

I’ve come to the end of my story and I really hope you gained alot from it. Journals are underrated! I’ll leave you with this quote by Anais Nin.