She could not help but reach for the diary beside her bed.
Like every little girl, she wrote out insignificant messages, doodles, and stories of a fictional life on the pages of the diary she had begged her mom for on a past weekly grocery trip. The pages between the pink glittery cover which she labeled as personal property contained the unimaginable from her childlike mind, and she cherished them like no other.
When she came home from kindergarten one day, she stumbled up the stairs to her room where she would lay in front of her diary and write out each thing from her day.
She’d write about how she was chosen to be the teacher’s assistant for the day and how she made it across the monkey bars without falling. She’d even write about how she had fallen in love with a boy on the playground whom the existence of she had just found out. She wrote the innocent moments of her life on the lines between her beloved sparkly covers for it became a safe place for a collection of her most important times.
As she grew older, the pink sparkly cover became a dull dusky shade and the contents between each line became more significant as her grasp on the world widened and her experiences grew.
She’s no longer writing about her forsaken playground love or her peculiar thoughts on what her life would be like if she lived in a castle; rather, her pages contain the moments of her teenage self just trying to get through life. She’s writing of every weekend sitting around the dining room table, sitting shoulder to shoulder with friends, debriefing on the past week. She’s writing of every interaction she’s had and every delusion her teenage mind has created, every tear she’s shed over a boy who will never deserve them, and every questionable moment she’s experienced.
Over time, the simplicity of a diary changed to be much more.
To her, a diary is no longer a desirable item on a shelf she’s begging her mom for, but a secure collection of her life. The blank pages that lay between two covers ever so slightly clasped around a metal spiral are the spaces for moments, people, and emotions—past, present, and future—of her life that make her who she is.
As she reaches for the diary beside her bed every night she flips through the pages she has covered in smeared ink and the occasional scribbles. Her eyes run over each line and her mind replays every moment contained in the words on the page. And while she is no longer flipping through a pink sparkly-covered diary she is still cherishing all that each line holds.
Her life is scribbled out on blank pages because to her a diary isn’t a collection of paper, but a collection of memories and the contents of her being.
