Mari's Journaling Power Blog

The Accidental Journal-ista

I have always loved reading.  When, as a child, I read The Secret Garden, I knew right then and there what I wanted to do. I wanted to move people emotionally the way that story had moved me.  I didn’t tell anyone my desire.  It seemed so out of reach for someone like me.  I wasn’t a standout student in school, nor did I come from a family of great accomplishment. We were a struggling working-class family. My destiny seemed written in the dirt I played in.

My grandmother bought me a locking diary after my mother died when I was ten. I suppose she thought I must have some thoughts I might like to write about.  I got no further than Dear Diary.  That was how Anne Frank addressed her diary.  I couldn’t think of anything to say, other than most banal statements of life. My aspirations became buried under years of shyness, lack-luster performance, and emotional blunting caused by unacknowledged grief.  Tumultuous teenage years were a given. It continued to be a time of great loss as I constantly lost the keys to the house, my wallet, my school books, and more importantly my innocence, along with other unmentionable things.  What I didn’t lose was my profound lack of confidence.

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