Keeping a journal may feel like a chore sometimes. But you realize its value when, years later, you read over your entries and meet your old self again. Well, technically your young self. I have yet to find any other activity that so effectively puts my present life in perspective.
At the end of 2016, I read through most of my old journals, dating back to 1999, my first year of university. (I had kept a journal during high school too, but I had burned it in a fit of teenage angst.) Most of the entries in my journals are unfit for public view, mainly because they make sense only to its author, and also because of the fluctuating quality of my handwriting.
But I stumbled upon ten pages of entries, all from January 2007, which I had typed out for some reason. I suspect it was because so much was roiling in me back then that I needed the speed of output to match the speed of my thoughts. Re-reading them on the cusp of 2017, I was struck by how cohesive a snapshot they gave of all aspects of my life at the time. Since it marks ten years exactly, and since I intend to honour my New Year’s resolution to make this blog more personal (lawd help me), for the next ten weeks I am going to post one page of those Jan 2007 journal entries every Sunday. A sip at a time, like a fine aged wine. That should take me to the fourth week of March, by which point I’m sure I’ll have come up with other ways to publicly eviscerate myself.
Am I scared about doing this? I was, but a few minutes spent reading The Weeknd’s lyrics cured me of that right quick. Allow me to set it up for you, reader. In January 2007, I was in my late twenties. In a little over six months, I would become motherless. But at the time, the relationship breakup that is the main topic of these entries, like every breakup I’d been through before it, was the greatest catastrophe of my life—never mind that I was its chief engineer. I must say I am disheartened at how much of my current self I still recognize in the girl who wrote these entries, and how almost-amused I am at how unsuspecting she is of the true, permanent heartbreak to come.
Drink up! And please enjoy responsibly. Especially you fellas who have long given up trying to understand how the female mind works. Here’s one sample. I think it is all pretty self-explanatory, but I will provide troubleshooting support if requested.
For the .pdf version, go here: 1-nocensor
Oh, and audio, if you swing that way:
Rebecca Fisseha, Writer. 