"Are
you going to read your journal tonight?" my little sister has asked three
nights straight.
"No,
not tonight."
She
then heaves a tragic sigh. "But it's so funny!"
For
New Year's, I resolved to read through my journal collection in chronological
order. So far, I have read seven journals, making it from the summer of 2008 to
the beginning of 2010. Some entries make my skin crawl with embarrassment, but
others are delightful to read. So far, I have found many stories worth sharing with my family, hence my
younger sister's interest in my evening activities.
The
rereading process has consistently surprised me. I was a lot smarter, nicer,
and better spoken in middle school than I now recall. It delights me to encounter
my outrageously advanced vocabulary, fascination with other people and what made
them tick, and ability to reflect on things which mattered. After years of
resenting that period of life and feeling like everything I did was hopelessly
mortifying, it's wonderful to appreciate my younger self.
It
is easy to oversimplify the past and reject it, but going back to reread old
writing reminds me just how alive, creative, and joyful I was. I was no less
real or important in middle school than I am right now, and I love how my journals do not allow
me to reduce my younger self to a prototype. I was fully alive, experiencing
both joy and pain in a reality that cannot be dismissed with snide caricatures
of middle school students. I was a real person, and so was everyone else my
age. We all mattered.
-----
A
unique attribute of my early journals is my avoidance of unpleasant topics.
There are exceptions, but for the most part, I chose not to write about my
insecurities, trials in life, sibling problems, social gaffes, or internal
conflicts. The problems I grappled with played such a significant role in my
development that I now prioritize narrative arcs of suffering, but that
can make it harder to recall the small, ordinary moments of happiness and
satisfaction. I am grateful for journals which captured them as they came.
These journals were so sunshiny that they often rang false, but I know that I had no intention of creating an alternate history. Positive experiences were all I trusted myself to write about
well and want to read later, and I believe that I made the right choice. I don't want to relive the
miserable parts of middle school. I want a highlights reel full of nostalgia,
and thanks to the discipline and discernment of my younger self, that's mostly
what I have. The long, detailed entries about fun social encounters, family
experiences, youth retreats, family trips, and creative projects are incredibly
special. One night, when I was reading about a trip to the mountains to visit
extended family, I kept reading snippets aloud to my mother and saying, "I
put so much effort into writing this, and it was a great investment in my
future! I'm so glad I went to the
trouble of writing about these events in incredible detail!"
Reading
my journals, I see how likable I could be at times. Sure, I was childish and
had awful character flaws, but I was also kind, considerate of others,
imaginative, funny, thoughtful, creative, bursting with insightful ideas, and
willing to put forth tremendous effort to record these things for myself. My
journal entries about youth group remind me that even though I struggled to
feel accepted there and was often wildly critical of others, I did behave well,
and there were reasons why my leaders liked me. At the time, their admiration
felt like a burden, because I knew what a terrible human being I was, but I now
recognize that the toxic feelings and behaviors in my private life, while very
real, did not cancel out the good aspects of my character.
It
relieves me to have minimal real-time documentation of the things I struggled
with back then, but at the same time, I deem them all worth remembering. As I
read these journals, I often thought, What
if the things I avoided writing about had never happened? Who would I be now?
Even if it were a possibility, sanitizing my past would not be worth it. Without
my personal failings, discomfort, and agonizing issues, I would not know grace.
Nor would I have the ability to love others out of an often-difficult history
that has been redeemed. If I had been as perfect, well-behaved, and upright as
I wanted to be, I would have lost so much, and gone on being smug and
self-righteous about everyone who wasn't as good as I was. I needed to see that
I wasn't good at all, and could never produce the perfect behavior and
perceptions which I believed I had to attain.
What
I needed the most was not a clean slate or renewed commitment to good behavior. I needed Jesus, and through the gospel, I understand that my despair over
not being good enough was a
fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be a Christian. I have grown,
learned, and become a better version of myself, but I am saved by grace alone, not by anything that I have accomplished or ever will. Because I am grounded in this truth, I can
reread my old journals in a different light, no longer examining myself to
determine how much condemnation or how much leeway I deserved. I can stop being
obsessed with how I measure up, and can appreciate my life for what it was, and most of all as a
story of grace.
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