Dear Dairy.

I've always had a dairy since i can't remember... from an ugly 'exercise' book to the state government/bank branded day planners to those fancy journals around. Once upon a time i couldn't and wouldn't go to bed without writing in my journal.
Some saw it as dorky, but it was my special thing.

I'm glad i did. I go back and read stuff my younger self wrote and how my mind functioned and i want to slide under the bed and hide from the silliness that was me :).
I was reading some of my old dairies and i was shocked. It just shows me how much I've grown, prayers that have been answered and how things i thought mattered at that moment weren't worth the trouble of sleepless nights. I was such a crazy soul hidden in the calmness of me. So deep thank God i didn't drown in myself... and the books i read? Loads of books out there mess your mind up, especially when the mind dwells in a wavery place. They were harmless to the eyes. But i've realized that those things go deeper than you can imagine(books aren't just books and movies aren't just movies)... books on dreams and astrology with a sprinkle of spells hidden in the pages, palm reading et co... thinking back it almost feels like i was on the borderline of being drawn into something beyond the ordinary, i never tried any of them, doesn't mean i didn't read with interest. Luckily for me, after reading the first harry potter book, rather than get drawn into it, i had nightmares and swore off it, or else...lord have mercy.
 I laughed and i cringed as i read through my '04 journal I was a lot of things at 19 according to my journal, i'll share a few...

*I had a little over 50 pairs of shoes. I'm not exaggerating, there was this guy called eskimo i bought shoes from. I just kept buying, some i never got to use, my mom wasn't so impressed whenever she came into my room. I didn't really need them, but i just had to have another pair or three. It was always fun counting my shoes (reading that in my journal made me realize that those things you're desperate to have are nothing... years later you look back and they don't make sense. I can;t tell what happened to half of the shoes. Don't kill yourself if you can't afford another pair of shoe today. It's not worth it in the long run. A few years from now, you wouldn't even need it)


*I cried a lot for no reason. I loved to be alone in my room and the sobbing would start in that moment. ... apparently shoes and material things don't give you an automatic ticket to happiness. It looked like i had it all on the outside, a car, a life... clothes and a decent popularity rating, but i wasn't really happy.

*I had loads of 'toasters'. I laughed hard when I read how amazed i was that a boy I never met in my life came to the house to look for me and declare his love. I just couldn't understand how a person could do that. I had to make didi once to look younger than my age cos much older boys were after me, i wanted to scare them off. Perverts, apparently the younger the better. It was a no shaking situation for them.

*I was fat... I would eat a lot, then whine about my weight in my journal, then starve myself, then hit the new and only gym in town the next day(the humblest gym I've seen to date)...  At 19 I was stupid enough to spend money on Quincy Ayodele slimming package. That slimming program was worth nothing and so expensive, all it told you to do was go on some diet plan which really was eating nothing and drinking some yucky tea. "I'm so so fat, Ayodele isn't working... I really feel like being married right now" *straight face*
Basically i felt by being married there did be less pressure on self about my weight, it was an automatic ticket to being big and free. My favorite uncle said it was just baby fat and I'd outgrow it... how i love that man. Because i did outgrow it :)

*I wanted to preach and win souls for God... i remember having a dream that i was on a pulpit once. Then I wrote, "I know that's just wishful thinking." (I just couldn't figure how to get closer to God)

*I was insecure about my looks! I haven't changed much from what i looked like then, maybe a little older and less chubby. But how in the world was my mind able to play that card on me? One day i'd feel beautiful and the next all i'd see was a lot of flesh. I was scared people only wanted to be around me cos of my looks and maybe i wasn't worth anything if it was taken away on the days the mirror showed me a pretty girl. I wondered and called my gift my curse. Thank God he didn't agree with my silliness and take it all away.

Nineteen was such a year indeed. I'm glad I've outgrown some of my fears and worries. I love my body whatever size it is. I look in the mirror and i see a beautiful and wonderfully made woman. My self esteem is on an all time high. I'm slowly but steadily getting to where i want to be. I don't cry as much as i used to. I'm happier than i ever was even with less clothes and fewer shoes.
I've read through different years of my life and i'm truly glad i documented those details. Some thoughts i wrote gets me thinking... is that really how a girl of seventeen should think?

These days i don't have the everyday sort of journal... but i have a gratitude journal, and my spirit gets revived whenever i read through it and see Gods faithfulness, from provision to deliverance, to protection to restoration and his promises.
I'm starting a daily journal again. I would love to look back at this moment five years from now and see how my little worries are nothing, and how my fears are just a bunch of silliness. I would love to see how my dreams, more elaborate than they were ten years ago have come true. It's like going through a photo album from the past, only the pictures you're seeing are your thoughts.

Comments

  1. Keeping a diary is a commitment and can also be used to measure growth.Like you said,It's like going through a photo album from the past, only the pictures you're seeing are your thoughts.

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  2. Lol, you are so good looking o. How could you have thought otherwise?
    50 pairs at that young age? wooow

    atilola.blogspot.com

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  3. I am now glad I keep a diary. I can't wait to look back later.
    Carla
    redpunzel-Carla.blogspot.com

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  4. i feel the same way whenever i read my old diary, things that caused me sleepless nights then, are totally irrelevant now. it gives me hope that everything would be alright too.

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  5. @okeoghene it's such a huge commitment, but worth all the extra minutes up before bed.

    @ilola ha ha, thanks... i must have been crazy;) over 50 pairs... i got them at good prices and not all were that hot:)

    @carla... there's such a good feeling linked with it.

    @doll...it's crazy right? how we worried for nothing.

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