chapter 2: chapters
I’ve had a strange occurrence.. occur.. in my last 5 journals.
I know what you’re thinking. Can’t I think of a different word than “occurrence”? More importantly, didn’t I say in chapter 1 that I didn’t have energy to write??
No, and yes.
Let me explain.
I’ve been journaling, on and off, since maybe 7th grade. I was tentative at first, scared of being diminished to a silly little teenage girl with her silly little diary. I felt, from a very young age, that I was much more serious than my peers. Schoolwork was “beneath” me, and my inner monologue was explored in a journal (NOT a diary). The journal, of course, reads exactly like you’d expect from a highly anxious, chronically overthinking thirteen-year-old. Not exactly the refined, philosophical observations I assumed I was recording at the time.
It’s cathartic, if not finger blister-inducing, to dump the contents of your anxious brain onto the pages of a notebook. Honestly, I’m distressed that mainstream wellness culture has begun recommending more abbreviated forms of the practice. Something is better than nothing, obviously. But I feel like the constraints (“5 minutes of gratitude journaling” comes to mind) inhibit the natural flow that I’ve always found so restorative.
I recommend journaling to everyone I know, though I admit 0 (zero) people have followed my advice. It’s an answer to boredom, anxiety, existential dread, and philosophical questions. A journal helps you remember how badly your ex really treated you, but it also helps you relive how excited you were when you started your new job. It's a salve for festering emotions as well as a transparent time capsule, written just for future you.
Journaling seems especially profound since it’s so physical. The things we think and experience don’t exist beyond the present - something that has been plaguing me ever since my best friend, Alana, brought it up to me (hers in regards to the permanence of digital vs film photography). After all, texts are on our phones, and pictures are probably in the iCloud (whatever that means). If we can barely use VCR tapes, which aren’t even that old, imagine how hard it will be to access your old Instagram account in 50 years. So many self-timer photoshoots gone to waste. How will our hypothetical grandchildren know that we were once as young, hot, and carefree as our pictures make us out to be?
My best self-timer photography, as seen on my company's Instagram
I’m sure this yearning for permanence is some modern rendition of the animalistic urge to procreate; for some part of you to exist after you die, if only in the form of DNA or a collection of images on Instagram. It feels terrifying to realize how easily your digital footprint could cease to exist. And with it, you.
Journaling feels like a more permanent way of existing. Pages can catch fire and notebooks can be dropped in the bath, but the physical manifestation of our consciousness seems like a worthy enough cause to work towards, even with the threat of waterlogged pages.
And so, journaling has been a refuge for me. A place to slow down my anxiety brain and try to process things instead of sitting back as they happen around me. A place to remember what it feels like to be at my lowest and appreciate how glowy I felt at my highest. A safe place.
But back to the occurrences.
My last FIVE journals have started/ended during major turning points in my life, almost exactly to the day, making them feel like literal chapters of my life. It began at the end of 2019, when my relationship ended just as my journal did. The next journal was a new beginning and ended just when I graduated in June 2020. The journal after that was the beginning of post-grad life, and the next was moving out of my childhood bedroom at the beginning of 2021. My subsequent one began in May 2021, a week after I started my new job. And now, I find myself on the last pages of my current journal having just started my new job.
Sometimes it’s nice to have the chapters. It’s nice to have a narrative that helps me lay out a confusing and emotional tenuous time in my life in simpler terms. But I know better than to make my life into a story. And it’s an uncomfortable feeling, too, edging a little bit too close to “main character” syndrome for my liking.
Stories, after all, are often only the highlight reel. People are way too complicated to be captured in a movie, or even a book. The main character can’t really exist. Not in the way we see it, at least.
Ultimately, life isn’t meant to be divided into chapters. There is no predetermined plot, and the storyline is fluid. Things aren’t supposed to conveniently wrap up when you reach the last page. They continue on and on. Characters come and go, and everyone changes. But there’s no “story.” It’s just life.
Until next time!
Love,
Madeleine
PS Please sponsor me Moleskine. I desperately want this limited-edition Missoni collab notebook in orange, please. https://www.moleskine.com/en-us/shop/limited-editions/moleskine-for-missoni/missoni-notebooks/missoni-notebook-orange-8051575154560.html