The Number One Reason for Keeping A Journal

When I turned fourteen, two important things happened. The first was a big life-changing event: I got cancer. The second began as a small daily habit: I started writing in a journal.

These two things had an equal impact on my life.

Almost two decades later, I don’t remember what prompted me to start writing for myself. It may have been my eighth-grade English teacher who gave us ten minutes at the start of every period to free-write; it may have been the influence of the diary and epistolary-style books I was reading at the time. For whatever reason, I began to write daily, generally at the end of my day. I wrote in big artist sketchpads with bold markers to express my creativity and give myself space; small, spiral-bound notebooks made me feel claustrophobic.

I would start off most entries by complaining about the tough things I was going through: the MRI that showed more affected lymph nodes, the looming surgical dates, the embarrassment I felt over my scars and feeling different from my peers. But as I wrote, I began sharing happier things: what my friends and I had laughed about at lunch, a test I’d done well on, the fun music we were playing in band. Gradually, a pattern emerged. I’d sit down with my markers, ready to pour my darkest thoughts and fears onto the paper, but in the process, those thoughts became lighter and more hopeful.

Looking back, I credit a lot of my “survival” of cancer to those journal entries. Not necessarily the physical survival (although I do believe a person’s mental state contributes to physical healing) but the ability to get through the challenges of teenaged cancer and still feel happy and able to move forward with my life. I lost the journaling habit for a few years in my mid-twenties, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those were the years I struggled most with depression, anxiety and my overall sense of self.

People begin journaling for many reasons, such as chronicling daily life, organizing their thoughts, or as a precursor to writing larger works. All of these are excellent reasons for journaling. But for me, journaling will always be about healing.

In my next few posts, I’ll talk about how to set up a journal entry, how to maintain the habit of writing, and when to put a personal journal to greater use. In the meantime, I’d like you to consider two questions. If you keep a journal, what’s your main reason for doing so? And if you don’t, do you see any benefit to it?