When I was in high school, I always looked happy. I was the girl who was never seen sad, but the only thing that saw what was going on with me was my pillow, as it got soaked most nights. That time, I was going through personal issues I couldn’t share with anyone, but I also wanted to keep appearances, you know? The whole cool girl vibe thing.
But something happened. The friends around me, my three friends, saw through the act. They realized along the line that I always wore a mask on campus. They tried everything to get me to voice out, but that never happened, so they did something different. They got me a diary, my first ever diary, to write how I felt. And that was the beginning of my healing journey.
They didn’t stop on the first; they got me diaries till we completed school. At a point, my diaries weren’t even private anymore. The four of us had access to them as a way of bonding and being there for each other. Just like myself, we later realized we all found it hard to verbally communicate with each other about struggles, so the pen was our way out. In the end, they ended up becoming more like chat books.
Many years after high school, and I still use these diaries to find my inner girl. They mean so much to me, and that has made me very protective of them. What makes me very attached to these books is how special their content is to me. You know how most diaries have just the owner’s thoughts? These ones are very different. There were many times I randomly found cute and encouraging messages written by my three friends whenever I was going through hard times in school.
It also has pages of me being there for my friends and letting them know everything will be fine. And whenever I read it, the effect those words have on me never gets old. My favorite thing from those diaries is how one thing runs across: the encouragement to allow myself heal rather than fake happiness and the reminder that I don’t owe anyone a happy face and certainly do not need to keep shining my teeth to be validated by the cool girls on campus.
I believe that the sense of fulfillment the words in these diaries give me has been a constant reminder to keep being me and not live life for validation. So although they are about 2 or maybe 3…okay, okay, 5, they will never be too many to me as they have a solid purpose in my life and also serve as an escape route from chaos.
Images are mine