I recently found the diary I kept when I was
15-17.
It was so interesting (and also very
embarrassing) reading back through it. This journal was the only period in my
life where I documented things. I wasn’t the
girl that kept a diary about boys she liked our things that happened to her
that day. I instead used to wake up in the middle of the night to record a
dream and analyse its connection with life, or draw up a mind map of how lions
were my spirit animal or write a list of the awkward/embarrassing things I had
done that day. And occasionally I would write a statement that summarized my
complete confusion with the world.
It was these few
sentences in my old diary that I found completely perplexing, as I flicked
through pages of thoughts that still haunt me now. I couldn't help thinking
that maybe I was much wiser and more intune with the world when I was 15.
The things that were written made a lot of sense, so I thought I owed it to my
wiser 15 year old self to share them:
“Objects are
worthless and yet they determine wealth.”
I don't remember when I wrote this or why. It was written on a page by itself at the back of my journal, but there is so much truth to it. People value materialism so much, everyone wants more then what they have and when they get that, they are still not satisfied and in the end none of it matters anyway... its all just things and stuff.
“If ignorance is bliss and knowledge is power how is anyone supposed to find middle ground?”
This was a reflection
on the difference between me and my brother. I
constantly contract anxiety because I have a need to know exactly
what is going to happen and when I don't know (which is often) I start to get
overwhelmed and anxious. It is something that I have learned to control
over the years but I still see the power in knowledge and knowing what is next.
My brother on the other hand is the complete opposite. He seems to only
live for the moment. He stays ignorant to things until he has to face them
and he seems to get through life a lot easier because of it. I even used
to worry when he didn't worry about things.
"Life is a perfect imperfection, and I wouldn't have it any other way."
I wrote this after an
embarrassing episode of pure awkwardness in front of someone I liked at
the time. The entry was pretty funny and it is still one of my favourite
stories to tell but this line stood out among the reflection of utter
humiliation. It reminds me that my life is less like the lives of the characters
in a TV drama and probably more like the lives of the characters from
Seinfeld or any other sitcom.
"It is both extremely wonderful and enormously excruciating that we must feel such intense emotion."
I wrote that
statement after crying because I was so happy about something that
had happened - (this was probably the start of my highly sensitive
disorder where I just feel all the feels.) It was the first time that I
thought maybe crying isn't about being sad but rather it is something that
happens when we are so full of emotion we have no other way to release it then
through tears. I had written this under one of my favourite
quotes:
"There is a sacredness in tears, They
are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten
thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep
contrition and of unspeakable love." - Washington Irving
This sentence I wrote in my diary also
reminds me of one of my favourite conversations with B when we agreed that if
you don't live life passionately you are not living it at all, and letting
into your emotions is part of that.
However, my favourite
was one that is most relevant, especially now in the middle of war and conflict,
hatred and suffering:
“Much of the
world makes no sense”
I found that statement alone on a page that had become crippled from my tears … I had written it just after watching the news.
-A
*Mosaik does not take credit for any of the images used in this article
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