Objects of My Life

Since I was little, I have documented my life in many ways; there are objects that, quite literally, tell the story of my life, which I will always treasure. 

When I was about five years old, I got my first diary. Sadly, there are only a few diary entries before the pink pages of the Hello Kitty notebook diverged into scribbles. I was still basically illiterate at the time, so this may have been too early to try and get into journaling. Still, though, I was excited to retell the events of my life on paper, and while the sparse entries don’t give too much insight into my life at the time, they retell a few nice memories and moments of my five-year-old self.

Only a few months after getting–and quickly abandoning–my diary, our family got a brand-new iPad. The day we came home with it, my parents recorded a video with me saying hello to our new device. I was immediately captivated by the idea of talking to my new iPad friend. I would record myself almost every day, beginning each video with an enthusiastic “hi iPad!!” I had struggled to make friends in preschool and kindergarten, so aside from my sister, the iPad was my closest confidant. I read the entire Pinkalicious catalog to my iPad, shared my life aspirations, vlogged conversations with my sister (which would inevitably turn into fighting), and just generally talked about all aspects of my life. 

I still have this iPad, which now contains over five hundred videos of me talking to the screen. I look back on those videos now and I can't help but smile; they are a reminder of a simpler time and a simpler me, and bring back so much nostalgia. I am so grateful that I have these videos to look back on, and I know that I will treasure them forever.

As I grew older, the iPad was sadly disregarded–although I would still turn to it for the occasional game of Tap Zoo–and I turned myself to more “big girl” pursuits. Out was capturing my life on video, and in its place was the return of the diary. Now that I was a more-literate second grader, writing in a diary was a lot easier–and a lot less spelling mistakes came with it. The only problem was that I greatly struggled with committing to write every day. I would usually run full-steam for the first few weeks of entries, then gradually peter off and forget about my diary altogether. This cycle would repeat with every notebook I received–and there were a lot of them. I have countless unfinished diaries in my bookshelf, each one a brief capture of a period of my life. 

Even though these diary entries were few and far between, I am glad that I at least tried to take time to write about my life. Just like when I look through the iPad videos, I love looking through old journal entries over the years. I love that I have a catalog of my feelings and experiences, and I have learned so much from revisiting my younger self. 

Nowadays, I unfortunately lack the motivation to keep a journal in any form. My schedule has been and still is incredibly-time consuming, and I unfortunately choose to use my limited free time for far less beneficial hobbies, like surfing social media. However, writing this blog post has made me consider just how much I appreciate looking back on old “time capsules” of my life. Although I can’t make any promises about just how well I will be able to maintain a journal with my senior year schedule, I want to revisit this old habit so that the future me can look back on these memories with a smile.