Yesterday on a whim, I rearranged my office bookshelf. I was astounded by the number of journals I have filled since I began writing in 2010. I took a few minutes to skim a few entries at random. As I read, I saw the intricate weaving of my life’s various threads.
It was a beautiful vision.
I read about my first-ever paid music gig—playing for my great-grandparents’ retirement village’s Christmas party.
I read about my outrage at a math teacher who nearly made me late for P.E. I still feel the visceral anger of my thirteen-year-old self, even if her woes seem comically small now.
I read about being painfully alone in a foreign land as a young, single graduate student.
I read about dancing all night to Celtic music—a wholesome core memory if there ever was one.
I read about my biggest heartbreak, yet with a strange sense of joy. I know now what I could not have known then: that terrible heartbreak occurred exactly one year before an immense joy.
It is good to keep a record. I doubt my journals will ever become a best-selling memoir, but they help me reassemble myself in times of restlessness or confusion or fear. They remind me that I serve a faithful Author, who can manage multiple themes and characters and plot lines far, far better than I can.
Ryanne Molinari 