My hands are under the bed, and my neck is strained backwards as I
try to press my whole self under to grab my key. "It is under here
somewhere, it just dropped", I think, and finally my hands feel the stick
of the mini jagged edges. My diary is safe once again. At 10 I was
the typical 80's latch key
kid, door key around the neck and a freezer full of banquet meals to keep my gut in check. The door key, I knew not to lose unless I wanted to risk a near death incident with Granny, but the diary key, my heart wanted to keep safe, even more than my butt. Acting like a true kid who thinks they have "business" I knew I couldn't take the embarrassment of anyone reading my private thoughts. As much as I hating whooping, I sure would choose to lose the door key before allowing this diary key to linger under my bed for unsuspecting, nosey, cleaning family members to find.
kid, door key around the neck and a freezer full of banquet meals to keep my gut in check. The door key, I knew not to lose unless I wanted to risk a near death incident with Granny, but the diary key, my heart wanted to keep safe, even more than my butt. Acting like a true kid who thinks they have "business" I knew I couldn't take the embarrassment of anyone reading my private thoughts. As much as I hating whooping, I sure would choose to lose the door key before allowing this diary key to linger under my bed for unsuspecting, nosey, cleaning family members to find.
As, I became a "BIG" girl, and began to Journal, because
that's what "BIG" girls do. "BIG" girls are
sophisticated and that is why they use fancy lined journals for their daily
entries and little girls use cute pink books with fragile gold locks on them.
I am a "BIG" girl now, so, I journal and I don't use immature
things like diaries anymore. There was some truth to my thoughts, I was a
"BIG" Girl now, but I didn't know that the difference between a diary
and a journal was not merely the color and number if lines on the page.
In my cute youthful Pink Hello Kitty Diary, the expectation was chronicled
experience and daily to do's, much like creating a travel diary it would look
like:
(Today we ate breakfast at the hotel and went sightseeing in
downtown Atlanta, tomorrow we will visit Stone Mountain and see the laser show)
In this chronicled, diary-style example I left myself no feeling
and emotional identifier.
If I created a journal entry about my day in Atlanta, it would
read something like:
(When we turned the corner onto historic Peachtree Street, I was
amazed at the metropolitan and interesting scenery, but I couldn't help but
thinking that these fancy building and diverse metropolis were once places
where Black men and women, were beaten, hosed and abused during their fight for
civil rights. It became difficult for me to enjoy the sites, wondering if
the commercialization of the day was what the freedom fighters of before were
seeking.)
Lois Guarino interprets the differences between diaries and
journals to mean that the journal is a place where "you can commune with
rarely explored parts of yourself and where those parts can answer back. It is
this dialogue, carried on over an extended period of time, that has the
potential to bear surprising insights, support truth-telling, and foster
courage."
I encourage you to begin your very own journal and begin to experience
that freedom brought in through reflection.
"Know you and Always Cheer your Me" Mika Terry
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