Not many people know that I like to write. Well no one knows I like to write, I guess, because I never told anyone. I’ve always liked to write since I was in school, it’s not that good though, but I like how I feel when I’m writing.
I’ve been writing on my journals too for the past few years, but I just got back to writing journal religiously for the past year. It’s kind of a love-hate relationship though, me and journaling. Sometimes I don’t write on my journal because I was scared to think of some thoughts and decided not to process it through writings. Then, of course, the thoughts that I pushed back in my mind became another problem that I have to face.
Journaling helped me regulate my thoughts and feelings. Since my brain sometimes is too loud for me to handle, writing it down helped me get some things off my mind and gave room for other thoughts to be processed. But one thing about journaling, that it really forces you to process and relive your thoughts & memories, especially uncomfortable ones. That’s why I reserve my journaling time before bed, because not often it led to break down sessions. But after writing it down, relief is the payback.
Writing made me aware some things of myself that I wasn’t aware before. Sometimes my mind feels like full of random strings that are crumpled up together with many knots tied here and there, unable to comb out the messiness. But after trying to untie the knots by pouring it down into words, sentences, and paragraphs, the strings became loose and so does my mind. Then sometimes I got sudden clarity on things that have been heavy on my mind. I was able to map out my struggles and problems that sometimes overlooked. By doing journaling, I’ve learned some patterns that triggered me that I wasn’t aware of. The writings on my journal are so raw, I can revisit and relive past memories to learn about my problems’ patterns.
Besides of raw writings on my journal, I’m trying to write publicly — again. I’ve written some pieces on my Tumblr back then, but then I got embarrassed and deleted them. So I’m reliving my Medium again. At least here in my Medium, I can still write without having to push myself to think of some unpleasant thoughts like I do when I’m doing journaling — another safe space, at least.
