As children and teenagers we are often encouraged to write a diary, I have never found out for sure but I’d imagine that the idea of this is for us to get practice writing, and to help us formulate our thoughts. When I was young there was only one person who could ever read my diary and that was my closest friend Tatiana Kukanova, we would swap on a Friday night, read them and then give them back on a Sunday afternoon when we met up to play. I stopped keeping a diary when I was around 16 years old, yet I recently discovered that Tatiana Kukanova has kept her’s going ever since, and I wanted to know why.
Habitual
Tatiana Kukanova told me that she used to look forward to writing in her diary on an evening and this became a force of habit for her, a habit which she just didn’t want to quit. She tells me that even now she spends her day thinking about what she is going to tell her diary when she gets home about the day’s events and it is something which she completes nightly before she goes to bed.
Honesty
Tatiana freely admits that she has always struggled to tell people what is in her mind or her heart, often thinking that speaking wouldn’t really solve anything. The one aspect of her life however, where she can speak freely and without judgement is her diary, a place which is only for you and a place where you can say whatever you want. This practice has proved extremely cathartic for Tatiana who is never trapped by her feelings as she can freely express them on paper. In fact she has told me that there have been many occasions where things have been written down in her diary first, and then she will open up to her partner or friends about things which have been affecting her.
Charting Progress
Both Tatiana and I are very much interested in our self-worth and the progress which we are making as adults, in our efforts to be better people. Something which Tatiana often uses her diary for is to chart her progress by looking back over previous years of diary entries, and seeing how that compares with who she is today. I really like this aspect of looking back at who you were at certain times in your life because we can very easily forget emotions which we had in the past. Through her diary Tatiana is able to reflect on where she was 1, 5 or 10 years ago, and then judge where she is now against that.
Do you keep a diary? It is something which I am certainly going to start doing again since speaking to Tatiana and as it turns out, it looks as though it isn’t just an exercise to improve kid’s writing, but also a wonderful tool for adults as well.
