to all the journals i've written (and yet to write)

I don't know what it is in my culture that says keeping a diary (or a journal, same difference) is childish, embarrassing, lovey-dovey. Yes, everything written in a diary does sound silly as they are not meant to be verbally spoken. For some people, telling a bestie or a perfect stranger would be the ultimate solution of relief, but both are still humans, note that. Humans have a life, feelings, and their conditions are not always suited to comfort the other. Humans also have their own characteristics that (even your bestie) may not suit the sort of therapy you long for. For some other people, like me, writing is the best therapy. Yes, you heard it, therapy (read this if you still laugh about diaries).

I've had been writing [journals, or diaries as you prefer to call it -though it sort of carries different meaning] since elementary school, perhaps 4th or 5th grade, where my depression started to swell. I was socially alienated (more like, I alienate myself), bullied for my physique (elementary school kids are the cruelest I suppose, for they have understood right-wrong, good-bad, pretty-ugly, yet they still innocently perceive things and bluntly say what's on their minds), and maybe some part about my parents' divorce (I didn't take much care for that. I mean, I was sad and disappointed and quite mad, but I was mostly focus on my own social and physical depression). I was (and am still sometimes) up to a point where I thought I need to be officially admitted to a mental asylum. Fortunately enough, I was never admitted, because my mom chose to treat me herself whilst setting aside her own depression from the divorce (I still feel bad for being a burden to my mom who was going through a much harder time than I was, but if she hadn't done it and focus on healing herself only, I may not be the person I am today -still not golden-material, but I grew up normally and have friends).

My mom plays a major part upon bringing me back into my senses, but I still have thoughts I couldn't share with my mom or my friends, and perhaps they wouldn't understand or just give a respond I am not hoping for. Writing would be a therapy and mood-reliever (not a booster, it doesn't have that much of an effect). Pre-writing feelings would be messed up, hysterical, too excited, too dreamy, while post-writing feelings would usually be preserved, normally happy, and content. I've read or heard about it somewhere-sometime that writing [journal] is also a form of meditation (something my mom keep fussing me about, but the more she fusses the more I refuse).

I am not the best person to keep my personal life from spilling all over the place, let alone keeping my journals in a safe haven. I'd usually have it in my drawer or under the pillow for I could easily have access to it, but then so did my friends. The thing is, I like inviting my friends to hang out in my room.

I think I've told (and written) this a million time. The time my junior high "friends" locked me out of my own room, searched for my journal, and read it aloud. Unbelievably, none of them knew the existence of the journals, except one; the girl I thought was a true friend, naive as it may sound. Unbelievably, I was still "okay" in front of them and let them hang out for a bit 'till dusk. Unbelievably, as two-faced as I might be, I still join a LINE group consisting of the people who read my journals off my permission, and reunite with them from time to time afterwards (I think it was 2015 that I last met them. I just never showed up in groupchat and refused meet-up invitations. I could've stopped hanging out with them as soon as we graduated from junior high, but I was damn curious about their current lives -I wanted to see the karma worked on getting their lives miserable or at least worse than I am. But now I'm not as curious, I guess I've let go of the grudge and just want to have nothing to deal with them).

Very recently, about the end of last year when I had my high school friends to come over, they found my journals. They wouldn't have read it if I insist (in a serious tone) that it's private. But I didn't want to ruin the mood and I thought they'd just keep nagging me about it, so I let them read some old journals from junior high, in which most of the people in there they didn't recognize. It was "safe to read and laughable" journals, but still... I felt invaded and stripped naked.

I didn't write at the beginning of high school, a while post my junior high friends' intrusion. Then I started to write again up until the very end of last year, when my high school friends did the same thing, but only more... humanely and polite. I still haven't decided whether or not to continue writing on journals, because every time this happens, there's then this voice in the back of my mind saying, what's so great about it that you need to write it down? guess your life's that boring for you to think such event is note-worthy. why do write such silly stuff? they are out of importance.

I don't know what it is about people who are so eager to read others' journals. Do you expect to have a material to laugh about in the future? Do you seek for answers? Do you seek for scandalous secrets? Well, in my case, you'd only find unimportant rants, depressed handwriting, and geeky thoughts. My social life isn't as scandalously interesting, thank you very much. (you will find some laughable materials anyway, but I will not appreciate your actions and wouldn't show it in front of your face -as cowardly as I may be, I'll just draw myself out of your life quietly)

[I found some time ago that my mom experienced similar thing about her diary being read aloud by her brother when she was little. Ever since then, she never writes a single thought.]