My son flipped through his hand-written diary one morning, feeling nostalgic. He’s written sporadically about key life events since he was five years old. We mused together over some gently embarrassing passages about fleeting crushes and other fiery emotions.
When he reached instinctively for an eraser after stumbling upon one innocently incriminating sentence, I stopped him, quietly suggesting that he might prefer to remember that moment one day. As it was not a traumatic memory, he agreed that he might enjoy being able to flip past the penciled-in incident year after year, wistfully appreciating its perceived lack of relevance to his current life.
This, folks, was a proud parent moment.
I am an avid journal-keeper, writing down dreams and daily happenings, song and story ideas, and fully-formed poems and lyrics that occasionally spill out in one go. Without these journals and the potential discomfort they might elicit upon later reflection, I would not know myself or be able to create as confidently as I do.
As mundane as they often seem, dreams are a fertile breeding ground for ideas: locations, characters, sensations and inclinations that might otherwise remain burrowed in my subconscious are given the opportunity to live forever.
Without my willingness to write down my innermost emotions, I would never have emailed my lifelong partner (and father of the aforementioned child) asking him to meet. This was also back in the 2000’s when “Unsend message” was not an option, so I had to stand by my written thoughts and see them through. Had I planted my finger on the backspace button – or never sent that message at all – I would not be raising the thoughtful, journal-keeping child I am today.
Keeping words, whether they’re scrawled on a napkin or voice-typed into a text file, costs us nothing. Our ideas never lose their value and only accrue interest over time. They are truly recession-proof. Making mistakes and acknowledging our pasts can both inspire and bankroll our futures. If ideas are currency, then our written thoughts are most assuredly money in the bank.
