The countdown for the curtain to be rung down on the year 2020 has begun. No doubt, our lives have been messed up during this year. It’s a mess, but for me it’s a beautiful mess because I remember the year in my own way, through my “Diary”.

When I was little, this practice of writing a “Diary” had begun. I wrote in few different diaries that I actually have till today. Although some of my friend had read some of them, sharing my pink dreams and making jokes about them, I regretfully stopped writing and lost interest in writing my journal for a long time, especially as I got busy with other interests in life and invariably had to play catch up.

Every time I go back to those memoirs, queries abound, mostly when was this written; what was going through my mind and life at that time, and so on. I realized it is similar to flashbacks. You will find yourself in situations where you miss to live those moments of recent experience again while sometimes you thank God that the period of time had passed.

I believe writing is one of the best ways of having clarity. When we write, we are in a relation with ourselves. We have our memories and write our thoughts, ideas or those things that bothered us, our dreams. We just need to let our feelings come out randomly; like someone’s out there listening to us.

I think one of the reasons people start writing their memoirs for they choose not to annoy anyone with their problems and suffering. Sometimes even not to convey their negative energy. They tend to write their daily matters to feel relief.

One of the facts about diaries is that it generally is not perfect, and that’s why we usually hide our diaries because they mirror our real persona and, we do not want people to read and see us in all our transparency.

Keeping a journal is like keeping a track of yourself because whatever you write is a reflection of the true you. Thus, it means that one can see your weaknesses and strengths and learn all about you.

It is ironic and it also hurts to see myself and people near me feeling paranoid to type or write what we feel, and we don’t if it is personal. Or we stop short because we don’t want to be judged one day when these memoirs are seen.

Yeah, I’m hoping to again take up journal writing and I advise everyone to do that. Diaries literally are the best to write when you are highly emotive — sad, alone, angry or happy. It is so pleasant to live instances of your life whenever you want to thru your memoirs.

— The writer can be reached on Twitter: @moionlynoor