by Margaret Dempsey

Created on: June 10, 2009   Last Updated: June 16, 2009

One of the most significant portions of the pursuit of literacy in my life has been one that was naked to even my own eye for a long time. A daily habit and ritual that I cherish, journaling is a main factor to which I attribute much of my current literacy standpoint. Being able to let my thoughts flow from my mind onto a piece of paper or document is deliciously satisfying. Additionally, writing about my experiences helps me to reflect on them later and to comprehend what my experiences have taught me. The journey my personal journal writing has taken me on is a process that has lasted fifteen years. This process has seen me through my happiest moments and my lowest times, my mistakes and my greatest accomplishments.

My first journal was a craft; I got a pink hardcover blank book for which I was supplied jewels and ribbons to decorate it. Once I felt it was aesthetically pleasing to my 6-year-old self, I began to actually write about my day-to-day life in it. Unfortunately at this point in my life, my biggest concerns were major holidays when I would receive presents, the cutest boy in class and my younger sister stealing my dolls. Nevertheless, I feel like this was a starting point into a life of literacy and inner communication that is still extremely prevalent in my life today.

I moved on from the design-your-own bejeweled diary to a custom-made American Girl diary that my mom ordered from a catalog and which had a lock on it. I hid the key to this lock in a jewelry box that also had a lock, whose key I hid in a sock under my bed mattress. To this day I can't remember whether I enjoyed the actual writing more than I did finding intricate ways to protect my young secrets. Regardless, I continued to write about the things in my life that were on my mind before I went to bed every night. Such things ranged from happenings in elementary school to how often I got to play with my dog. After I got rid of the lock-and-key diary, I moved on to a diary whose cover was illustrated with lavish roses. Somehow I felt the roses were a sign of maturity and depth, and as such I needed to only write about important and meaningful things in this diary. No longer would my favorite Disney movie quotes grace the pages of my beloved journal. My first entry, however, was about how scared I was for my 7th grade physical exam. I was immensely afraid of shots, and I didn't want to get the your body is blooming into a woman sex-talk from my doctor. Apparently I wasn't as ready

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