I have written everything down.

Journal 1

“Jane lives in a apple farm. One day she ate a myserious apple. The next day she woke up in the hospital. She couldnt rember any thing…”

(I thought I was going to be the youngest child novelista�� that’s how far I got.)

Journal 5

“Dear diery,

Today was a good day. I hung out with my friends and we went to the pool”

(I boycotted this format because I didn’t know how to spell diary.)

Journal 21

“IN: REAL purses Watermark Country club Mascara

OUT: Vera Bradley Forest Hills Pool Clear Lip Gloss”

( I wanted to keep up a journal just as the girls in my favorite books at the time, The Clique.)

These journals are hidden under my bed along with the wood slats, each doing the job of preventing me from crashing to the floor in the middle of the night in their own way. They are the journals of my childhood. The journals of incorrect grammar, starts of stories, painful drawings, and small hopes and dreams for a small dreamer of the biggest dreams.

There are hundreds of these journals, stacked up and in cubbies. Tossed about my book shelves and thrown in boxes in my storage room. Each in their own style of documenting the stage of my life they lived in. There are gaps, there are multiple for some days (I get sick of the feeling of different paper on occasion), but they are there.

Journal 31

“I hope eighth grade is better than seventh.”

These journals show my growth. To me, they are everything. But why do I bother telling you this? Revealing my hiding spot and allowing you to see even the faintest cracks of my existence that only I can see.

Journal 42

“I don’t know why I’m struggling so much.”

Because it matters. Because my growth is your growth. Because the world keeps spinning, and it’s not going to stop no matter what type of day you’re having. I think the most important part of growth is your rendition of it. Who do you think you are? How did I help you get there? These journals are my reflections- my growth- but you watered my seeds.

Journal 146 (September 8th, 2017)

“I didn’t used to think all the bad things mattered. I thought they were things the world threw at me just because that’s what the world did. I used to compare my life to a Ferris wheel; I thought that for every high, I was bound to fall down to a low. Round and round. Now I think of it as an equation. All the things that add up on a number line, the positive and negative number, equal the point I am now.”