Twenty-One Days 'til Sunrise

I've never been one to keep a journal; at least not a successful one. And I've tried, incessantly, to start the habit each coming season. The places I sleep, study and live are packed with unwritten pages of metaphysical questionings, neurotic ramblings and seemingly mundane occurrences that I secretly hoped would become meaningful years later. Blank page after blank page, untouched journal after untouched journal, my 'memories that could have been' turn up everywhere; hidden under my bed, crammed in bookshelves, drowning between papers in my desk - all asking "why?" with each turning of crisp, blank canvas.

Some of the journals were gifts - A faux-vintage brown paper notebook, complete with decorated cover from an artistic ex-girlfriend; a pharmacy pick-up for a last minute congratulations with an eagle on the front - others were personal investments, impulse purchases, and requirements for courses spanning from elementary school to my time at Keene State.

And while not every page is untouched, I can't help but cringe at the waste of paper and possible lack of personal growth that resulted in the negligence of these notebooks.  Most of middle school was an array of bored doodles. The larger portion of my writings from high school (dotted between brief moments of eloquent teenage angst) were made while stoned or drunk, only exacerbating the level of self-inflated but equally uninteresting content on each page. My college years have been predominantly undocumented. I seem to remember more about my life by looking at these journals than actually reading them.

Why did I turn away from writing?

For one, I could never find the right voice.  When writing about life, should one use first or third person? Should the voice and resulting text assume that the audience is the author? Or, as I often found, is it safer to assume your material could be read at any moment? (The stoned-code that lines the margins my high school journals may have been a result of the latter mentality.) What details should be omitted? 

At the end of the day, what constitutes as truly important?

Now that I'm older, I've realized this didn't matter - I should have just written. But I was too busy being a perfectionist. By the time I figured out what would be written, my urge had lapsed into laziness. Most of the resulting text was incredibly angry at the world, which only meant that reading the journals later would be equally painful.  Adding to the fact that my inquisitive mother's "accidental" tour of my high school journal led to her discovery of my recreational drug use, I had developed quite an aversion to expressing myself on paper. When I did write, it was brief, frustrated, and inconsistent. 

Eventually, I lost respect for my own calligraphy, my own physical effort to cherish the present moment.  Writing in my journal(s) became a quarterly event, then semi-annual, then non-existent. I rationalized my fear to document the day with the importance of other things (namely a false sense of a superior memory) and perhaps, I often wondered, I would someday realize that obsessing over the present moment was only narcissistic, fearful, and close minded.

In the passing of my 21st birthday, with graduation lingering on the horizon and grey hairs swiftly sneaking into my scalp, I have realized that whole years will soon slip by if I'm not more careful. I have choked myself of personal expression, confining my mind the the quietest of parts, letting my mouth speak with little thought for consequence.  As a result, I have been careless.  I have been insensitive.  I have found a way to live alone in world full of friends and family.  Unnecessarily anxious, bouncing from therapist to therapist, self-medicating and self-destructing. Acing classes at the expense of sanity. Enjoying life post-haste at the expense of a focused consciousness. I have crossed the boundary of the first quarter of my life, with plenty to reflect on and little to understand. 

When does living in the moment turn to living in the mausoleum? 

There is part of me, a part in all of us, that holds an undying impulse to start anew. Today is the day I nurture that craving, in hopes that I can turn it into a deeper understanding of myself and others. I am starting fresh, to harbor a renewed sense of respect for my own life and the lives of others - after all, life doesn't have to scare us to death, it only has to lead us there, and I'd like my path along the way to be a beautiful one.

They say it takes about 21 days to start a habit.  
Sounds like a start to me.