I wrote my first diary entry when I was ten years old. I had received the little journal as a gift from my oma. And after a few false starts, I started to write to the ubiquitous “Diary.”
When I look back on that diary today (yes, this reformed pack rat that has managed to throw away almost everything still clings to her childhood diary), I can see that I have always had a writer’s heart. In those days, I was young and immature. I had the worst spelling to ever grace the pages of a diary and nothing really happened in my life to warrant recording.
But I wrote. When I was in the woods, I wrote poetry. When I was confused, I wrote fiction to navigate through the questions swirling in my head. And when I was hurt, I would write my emotions as the tears streaked down my cheeks.
Nowadays, my diary is a little bit more sophisticated. I use a website called 750words.com to record my thoughts and feelings or stories and brainstorming. I pour my heart into my keyboard and it’s recorded (without all the spelling errors) and archived for future use.
Then COVID-19 happened.
They say Hashem provides the cure before the illness. As I said, I have always been a journaler, but I was rarely consistent about it. Until this last fall. During my NaNoWriMo attempt I made the decision that I was going to start writing everyday. Though I had tried to do it before, I had never managed to succeed with any real sticking power. But amazingly, this time it stuck and I walked into a total lock down like the world has never seen before with a solid habit of 125+ days.
Now, in this upside down world where my fiction writing has been paralyzed by a feeling that there is something greater I’m meant to be doing right now (like keep myself and the nine other people living in my home clothed, fed and sane), I have clung to my three little pages of writing like a lifeline. And thanks to Ann Goldberg, I have made a raft out of the only 15 minutes of writing I have consistently accomplished since Purim.
I begin by listing my successes. Both the big ones and the small ones. Successes like I didn’t lose my temper when I heard “I’m bored” for the eighty-sixth time today (the 87th time wasn’t quite so successful…). Or successes like I managed to make sure all of the kids got dressed today. Or successes like I broke down and cried and shared with my husband how hard this is for me.
Then I end each entry with a gratitude journal. I look back on my day and without stopping to consider what thoughts come to my head, I thank Hashem. Thank you Hashem for the eggs (anyone in Israel knows how big that one is!). Thank you Hashem for Pesach cleaning and the children that are helping me with it. Thank you Hashem for Shabbos which means I don’t lose track of the day of the week. And even, thank you Hashem for the coronavirus that helped me realize I love spending time with my kids and gave me this opportunity to focus inward instead of outward.
I am fortunate to have been given this gift. And I hope I can continue to use it to help myself and others make sense of this world. But my journal is where I work on making sense of me.
Why not give it a try?
