Deep in writer’s block, I wondered if my career was done. Here’s how rereading my childhood journals changed that.
I’ve been journaling on and off since I was 5, and in my totes filled with old notebooks are the handwritten moments illustrating my growth, development, happiness, pain, devastation and survival. From friendships to relationships, family to people I wish I knew, I wrote about so many things in those journals.
I don’t think I ever considered what it would be like to read them as an adult. Or how the other writing I’ve kept could tear me open, re-exposing me to moments I’d long blocked out.
As painful as it sounds, re-reading my journals was also one of the greatest things to happen to my writing. Is there anything more human than to feel things deeply? This is being alive, and as a writer it’s fuel for what I do.
Let’s go back five years first though.
In 2020, my writing felt stale. No, that’s not right. It was nonexistent. As the pandemic set in and intensified, I found the words dried up inside me. The ideas evaporated. The drive disappeared. Deep in writer’s block, I wondered if my career was done — a terrifying prospect as a writer.
It wasn’t that I had ideas but was without the muse. It was that there were no ideas. My creativity was blank.
I started writing fiction as a way to deal, weaving the darkness I was feeling into a dystopian tale. It felt good to release it, a sort of overflow valve. And in that, I discovered a long-hidden part of myself. The part that has stories bubbling inside that come not from experience or journalistic research, but from my creative mind.
It was freeing.
And that’s when I realized I wanted to pursue it more. So I gathered application materials, wrote essays and applied to grad school.
There was one problem though: Despite my love of fiction, my true love lies in personal essays, reported pieces and memoir. I was still staggering through those styles of writing, barely finding words. My writer’s block was persistent. It was like I lost myself.
When I started grad school, I threw myself into the assignments. Then a class changed everything.
I signed up for a memoir writing class. It was online and a bit outside the creative writing track I was on. But it was the best thing I did.
Through daily writing and prompts, that class inspired me to look inside for the words. Simple writing prompts like “I remember” and “I don’t remember” created cracks in the wall blocking me from my writing. And the more I wrote, the more I wanted to write.
Soon, I was digging out my notebooks and journals from childhood, my teen years and my young adulthood and reacquainting myself with me. Reading them, one entry at a time, I saw the child who wanted so badly to fill the pages, but didn’t know how or even where to begin. I saw the tween who struggled with her identity and fitting in, always feeling out of place wherever she was. I saw the teen who found her voice, discovered a boldness that masked her sensitivity and learn to fake the confidence, hoping it would become permanent. And I saw the young woman who finally felt at home, doing what she’d always hoped to — even as she fought the demons of trauma.
I wrote more and more and more, crashing through the prolonged writer’s block, letting myself relive transformative relationships and moments, again and again, mulling them over in a way I never had before. I found meaning where it had been missing before.
Re-reading those journals allowed me to really see myself again through my writing. The words finally came.
But it was a strange experience too. Finding what was important to me at 8 or 15 or 21, finding the way I wove words around problems, reminded me of the many changes and adaptations I’ve gone through with learning and maturing. I am not who I was nor am I who I will be. I am who I am right now.
This sense of discovery was freeing. Not only did it remind me of the power of vulnerable writing, but it reminded me that I shouldn’t get so caught up on single sentences in my first draft. Just write and the story will come (and revisions will help hone it all).
From that class, I produced several pieces that found homes in publications. An essay for The Girlfriend entitled “The Adjective That Best Describes Real Life,” and one for Farmer-ish entitled “Where This Beef Burgundy Came From,” both came from things I wrote during that class. And both came from the unraveling that I experienced after re-reading my journals.
The latter, from Farmer-ish, was even nominated for The Pushcart Prize in 2023.
That unraveling came with a price though. I opened a door to the past and all the insecurities that had plagued my younger years. It also showed me how aside from one relationship, I was never really willing to be fully open to anyone for many, many years. I hid parts and contorted myself to try to make things work. In doing so, I was never myself in those relationships. And when things turned, I would end them. I didn’t want to be hurt. As a 40-something, I could see how that propelled me from relationship to relationship, never finding what I needed.
Eventually, I ended up in therapy — not because of the journals but because I was facing things I had compartmentalized and ignored. It was long overdue — and that opened me up more.
Over the last five years, I have found myself again through therapy, reading my journals and writing. I have redefined what I want from life and my career. And I’ve pitched story after story, essay after essay, and racked up so many rejections. Rejections aren’t a bad thing — if you aren’t getting them, you aren’t pitching.
There are acceptances now too. For awhile, I wrote about restaurants for the Bangor Daily News. I continue to write about food, travel and parenting for BDN Special Sections. I’ve been published in The Girlfriend, Mom Egg Review, and Grown and Flown. And I’ve been publishing more in this space too — my own space. I’ve also had essays in several anthologies.
And then there’s the other benefit: re-reading my journals allowed me to open up for the first time in decades and see the most formative times and relationships in my life. It allowed me to see how far I’ve come.
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