This is my very first college paper! It is for my creative writing class, and I think it is my best written work so far in my life. Our assignment was to write a narrative about something crucial to our literacy education. Enjoy!
Dear Diary, It's Me, Bethany
I learned my ABC’s, I learned how to write a sentence, and I learned how to write an essay. The things I first loved about writing were the way my hand moved as I wrote the letters- around the bumps of the B, down the slide of the R, winding around an S; but I ultimately fell in love with writing through journaling. My personal literacy education and love for writing was a direct result of journaling, first as a young child, and then more frequently as an adult; it started as a deep-seeded need for a friend and a sense of duty to future generations, but blossomed into a passion for expression.
I remember a specific day when I was seven years old; my mom took my siblings and me to TJ Maxx, which involved a long car ride. I must have done something special that week, because my mom bought me my first diary. The book was smooth, shiny, and light pink with a tutu-clad teddy bear ballerina on the cover. It had a tiny padlock and came with two keys. I fidgeted with the lock all the way home. I was so excited!
At dinner that night I remember my parents having a conversation with me about my privacy, and the rights and responsibilities that come with owning a diary. They promised me that they would never read it, unless they had reason to believe I was doing drugs or that I was involved in something that would get me or my friends hurt. My sister and I were threatened with severe punishment for stealing and/or reading each other’s diaries. They told me that I could write whatever I wanted to in my diary, even if it was about them, and it would remain my own secret.
That is exactly what I did with it for the first few years. I wrote the secrets my friends told me, and I divulged my own. I told the “how we met” story for every boy I ever liked, when we would be married, where we would live, and what we would name our children. I kept my diary hidden from my sister in our room. I had it tucked away in my top drawer, in the back, under lock and key, where my secrets would be safe. When my sister was tall enough to see into my drawer, I put it on a rotation of secret locations around my room.
In the early days of my journaling, my writing consisted mostly of lists of my friends and the day to day happenings of my school days. I always started my entries “Dear Diary” Like they did in the movies, as if one day my diary would write me a “Dear Bethany” letter to tell me just what it thought of all my problems. I even found myself talking to it and asking it questions as if I would get a response. “Dear Diary, guess what I did today!” “Dear Diary, why does this always happen to me?”, “Dear Diary, do you think he likes me?” And for some reason, I never once doubted my sanity in doing this. In fact, it made me feel like I was fitting in, a part of something bigger than myself. It was like I was contributing to society and future generations, like Anne Frank.
When I reached Junior High, my need for secrets increased exponentially. I had fully grown into a level of social awkwardness that kept me from having many friends, but put me in the crosshairs of having my secrets exposed to everyone. This happened a few times; because I could not really learn anything until I screwed it up repeatedly. I learned quickly that the only person I could trust with these things was not a person at all. Thus, a relationship with my own literacy was born out of the necessity of a friend.
Soon, the day came when I felt that I was too grown up for my pink ballerina diary. If anyone at school ever found out that I still wrote in a kid’s diary, I would’ve been socially excommunicated until the end of my school career. This was the beginning of what I call my “transition years” in my writing. I had to find a cooler book to write in. I tried a regular purple notebook, left over from a school year past and put a cute sticker on it. But that was not distinctive enough. I tried one of those black paper notebooks that respond to gel ink, which was the cool thing in the late 90’s, but it became too hard to write in after my bedtime; when I was trying to be sneaky and stay up late. I kept finding something wrong with every journal I tried. It was like trying to meet new people and make a new best friend.
After finding something that worked for me, I spent the next several years journaling my experiences for the benefit of future generations, namely, mine. I wanted to chronicle my life as a young adult so that when I got old and gray, I would be able to read my actions and thoughts and be instantly taken back to “the good old days”. This approach served me well for quite sometime. So much so, that I began, at the age of twenty, to write my autobiography. Like many other things in my life, this was never finished, and several years later I still laugh at how little I knew about life then.
When the reality of adulthood set in (and I bought my first computer), in my early-to-mid twenties I began to blog as an emotional outlet, and form of self-expression. After having watched too many Sex and the City re-runs, I decided a humorous look at my dating life would be a great topic for a first blog. I joined several internet dating sites, “for research”, and was not disappointed with the unbelievable quantity of humorous and downright offensive responses. This gave me piles of kindling for my creative-writing fire. Having an audience to my thoughts opened up a world of entertaining my readers with my wit and sense of humor about life. I realized that some people really enjoy reading the opinions of others, and that my thoughts and opinions can challenge others to think about things in new ways.
That, in turn, challenged me to think in new ways. The feedback from my readers inspired and encouraged me not only to think about a specific event differently, but I was inspired to be more and more creative and open. I have realized that when I take a risk and share a deep emotion or a very personal opinion in my writing, others resonate with me. Vulnerability makes writing relatable. Writing these things has helped me to realize that though I may feel alone, I am never alone. My feelings and emotions are never exclusive to me.
So I continue to write, and I continue to share; sometimes for the benefit of others, but mostly for my own benefit. On my own, I explore the things in my heart and mind, and I commit them to paper or to the never ending canvas known as the World Wide Web. I continue in my own tradition that has spanned nine journals, four blogs, and nineteen years. My writing is now categorized by subject, like books on the shelf of a library, with a different journal or blog for each different area of my life. Writing, for me, has become more than just a keeper of secrets. It has become a passion of mine, and a necessity for my creative expression.
