Every time I press my black ballpoint pen onto a new clean page in my journal, allowing it to bleed with every period or dotted “i,” I feel an inexplicably comforting euphoria come over me. Verbally, my words are constantly being choked upon or put out poorly, changing their meaning and impact. But when I write, even if it is a daily recording of insignificant events, I am able to express myself in ways I can not achieve vocally. I have kept journals since the fourth grade. I use the term “journal” lightly, though. Truthfully, when I was younger my journals were filled with barely legible piles of words written in fluorescently blinding colored pens, with marginal doodles of hearts and suns wearing sunglasses. Clearly, my childhood journals were not the most mature recordings of thought. However, when I turned twelve, the age where innocent little girls become obsessed with perfection and getting what they want, I decided I wanted to become a writer. Although, recently, it has become evident to me that my original style of writing was questionable.
I have been in the process of moving and with that comes many a trip down memory lane. As I dug through bookshelves, and hidden shoe boxes under my bed, I was reintroduced to myself as a middle schooler. Within one of the cubbies that stood in front of my bed, behind copies of my favorite and, now, worn down childhood novels, I found a goldmine of journals, their once vibrant color fading. I knew immediately that I had to open them and look back at the genius I assumed I had been at 12, who wrote about meaningful topics with the maturity of an adult novelist.
I think anyone who has been 12 knows that I was abundantly mistaken.
The first old journal I opened was one I recieved for my 12th birthday. It has a plastic binding and an ugly picture of owls on it’s front. There's a frenzy of pencil lines carved into the cheap, silicone cover along with marks from the pink highlighter I irresponsibly left open at the bottom of my blue jansport. In the front cover are the words “private do not read” in black sharpie chicken scratch that bled through on to the front design. I began to flip pages, attempting to find one that was a coherent arrangement of thoughts. The first entry I came upon read:
“I write to inform the ignorant others from what they can not see.”
I chuckled slightly, thinking the unadulterated egotistical nature of the journal entry was meant to be humorous. However as I turned each page of the time capsule into my old self,  I was little taken aback by the harshness of my words.  For example, at the time, I was madly in love with a pompous (and disgustingly cliché) basketball player. He had a “girlfriend” (well, as much of a girlfriend as he could have as a 12 year old) and needless to say, I hated her with every ounce of my being, despite having never actually spoken to her. I wrote that she was a “witch” and even criticised her name. This particular journal entry, I noticed, was written in my beloved brand of black ballpoint pen. It frustrated me to think that the same pen, the pen I treasure so dearly, had been used to write this trash.
I read, page by page, the inner workings of a jealous 12 year old’s brain - a 12 year old that hardly resembled me. What shocked me the most about my scattered arrogant entries was not the poor grammar or pretentious way in which I explained myself, but the lack of compassion I had for those I wrote about, be it the girls who had what I wanted or the boys who were too distracted by themselves to notice me (as 12 year old boys should be). I am what a parent would call a “nice girl.” I’m not a bully, I’m a good student, I care more about books than makeup, and, most of all, I never judge people before knowing what their life is like. So one can understand my confusion when I came across the blatantly mean entries that lurked in my past. However, my confusion may have been because of who I am now. Since the journal entries were written, I have been through a little bit of what grown-ups call “real life.” I’m more aware of myself and how I treat people, never wanting to repeat the mistakes of those who have hurt me. Looking in on young Emma, I saw a monster who knew nothing of other people’s struggle and whose lack of life experience made her not only a mediocre writer, but a person lacking compassion and empathy for others.
This self evaluation came to be too much for me after awhile and so I closed my journal and have not opened it since then. It will always be on my desk though, dusting under my current journal and, eventually, they both will lay under the next journal I’ll keep - each one better than the other and each one written by a practically different person.