The grand experiment is over. I think I’ve learned everything I can from this experience, and it’s time to try something else.
Inspired by Eazy A’s Musings, I started this journal during my senior year of college in 1998. And like others before me, it’s time to quit. It seems to be the trendy thing to do.
But I’m glad I will always have these journal entries to document a period of rapid change in my life.
Someday, I will show this to my kids.
I also learned some interesting lessons about keeping an online journal. I could probably write a sociology text about it. Ye current and future diarists, take heed:
People get addicted to it, and they read it intensely. They will quote passages from it.
You might try to be cryptic, but everyone knows what's up. They might misinterpret the specifics, but they always get the general idea.
My main goal was to be painfully honest when I wrote, but I couldn't resist some experimentation. Sometimes I manipulated the truth, others times I outright lied. Sometimes I wrote provacatively to encourage conversation, not because I actually meant what I said. Nobody ever questioned the integrity of what I wrote. This was very interesting to me.
It's weird when someone from the fringes of your life finds your journal. They form complex opinions about you based on the few sentences you write before bed each night.
This can be painful, but it's part of the love/hate relationship you form with the journal. You try to stay true to the journal, but it betrays you sometimes.
When I started, I made a committment to be painfully honest. I didn't want to be entertaining; I didn't want to hide from my feelings; and I didn't want to please anyone but myself. But it's hard to ignore the fact that others are reading. You also need to acknowledge the fact that everything you write will be there forever. You can't take it back. It's hard to be completely honest with that kind of pressure. Sometimes your hyper-awareness of the audience persuades you to write self-important drivel.
At least for me, the journal focused mostly on negative experiences and emotions. That's just the way it works. When everything is going well, you don't feel compelled to write about it. A fun evening on the town with friends probably won't make it into the permanent record, but a bad time will definitely be written up and over-analyzed. This is the biggest disappointment for me, and why I ultimately must quit writing. I feel that the journal doesn't accurately represent my life. When I'm eighty and looking back at my twenties, I hope I remember the overwhelmingly good experience--not just the angst I recorded in my journal.
I am not my journal. My journal is not me.
Maybe it's just my perspective right now, but overall I think the journal has done more harm than good for my reputation and my sanity. I can't really recommend it to anyone. But I can't say I regret it either; in fact, I'm kinda sorry to say goodbye.
For those of you who depend on this journal for insight into my daily life, I hope you will now find some spare-time to speak with me personally. I want to talk; sometimes I’m insecure and I need you to ask me directly. And please continue to read my friends’ journals. They’re good people.
That's it. Thanks for reading.
Love,
Bri
PS—Kristin: Don’t be such a stranger. Call me sometime.