I’m not one to write in a diary; for three consecutive years (age twelve, thirteen, and fourteen). I would recycle the same dot-grid notebook and try to force myself into keeping a bullet journal and every year, without fail, the notebook would stay in perfect, pristine condition. That was until last summer: Granted, that exact notebook is likely stashed somewhere in a box, in a closet, in a house halfway across the world.
I started writing myself emails.
For The Vault, I’d write in the subject line each time. A Taylor Swift reference, of course. With each Vault letter I realized more and more how much worse overtalking my problems was than just overthinking. I was on one long slippery spiral slope of no longer believing in my own opinions.
Time Magazine: “We live in a world that doesn’t just encourage overtalking but practically demands it, where success is measured by how much attention we can attract.”
I’m an extrovert and (at least in my native language) consider myself confident and very comfortable talking in front of crowds. I’d learned to love sharing about my day in drawn out text messages to friends from other countries. It eventually became a competition to me: to see how long my daily round-ups could be; it had gotten to the point that I would throw the messages into a word counter just to see how many I could write in one setting.
My emails to myself made the writing feel more like a self-reflection and less like a way for me to brag about my day (or how my words I could write). They made me feel more intentional. I would sometimes not even finish an email for a few days.
Once Summer had wrapped up, I realized that I had stopped needing to write them entirely. I am not an advocate for bottling up your feelings, but I do feel it necessary to say now that relying on other peoples input/opinions to make your own will not make you happy. Everyone is different, and no one is going to know you better than yourself; I’m never going to be someone who writes in a diary or even consistently writes herself emails but I can teach myself not to overestimate my own strength in not caving to peer pressure/have my opinions on issues be swayed by people who aren’t in my situation to begin with.
I hope this advice finds you well.
Sincerely,
your scrapped email exclamation marks and more than half of this blog post.
Skyline Writing Center 