I have been evasive about documenting certain experiences I went through over the years. And recently, my un-documented memories are increasing in number, waiting to be inked. Writing had a way of concretizing experiences, of giving them a life of their own even when its essence, if not absurdity, may have started to dissipate the moment “the moment” was over.
Writing had a way of compounding the meaning of my experiences — of extracting all the life and essence they can possibly hold. But the vibrancy of their meaning stubbornly clung at the core of my being even when it was no longer parallel with reality. It became utterly difficult to approximate reality with all the meanings I tend to infuse into my experiences and circumstances.
The dear-diary persona in me has never died but in the course of the years that my spirit had been assaulted with realities of growing up and adulthood, I struggled to temper (and sometimes annihilate) the perpetual documenter within me.
During elementary and high school days, whenever I document my experiences, I would deepen it with truths and beliefs I hold dearly in my heart – it made my reality magnificent and colorful. But as I moved on to college and then to adulthood, many of the truths and beliefs I held on to have been challenged. Some have crumbled. Some have remained but no longer practiced. And there have been several blows of life that made believing and holding on more painful. It was easier to fall into the abyss of disenchantment than to continue holding on to meanings, truths and beliefs.
But these very things are what make writing about our experiences essential no matter how fleeting they are and even when we suspect they would become tragically absurd in the future. Keeping a diary encapsulates the meaning of the mosaic moments of our lives, records the evolution of our character, and renders a virtual form of permanence to all these fleeting-ness we grapple with everyday.
It was never a futile endeavor trying to give some permanence to those memories I knew would somehow dissipate or evolve. And perhaps, it’s time I renew my bond with my dear-diary persona.
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