The journal pages lay one by one under a glass case; torn from the binding, frayed at the ends and worn by age. Misspelled words and grammar mistakes are crossed out in the same ink in which she wrote her infamous name: Anne Frank.
In Amsterdam, I had the privilege to walk through the small rooms her and her family hid in for more than two years and then through the museum dedicated to Anne Frank. Nothing prepared me for the chill up my spine as I saw her small, dainty handwriting on the beige pages. Her checkered notebook, a birthday present from her parents, is protected under a layer of thick glass. The sentences emphasizing her hopes, dreams and fears started in that diary in 1942. Now, these same sentences are translated and printed in different languages on clean sheets of paper. Teachers buy The Diary of Anne Frank in stock for middle school class rooms and encourage kids to read the historical happenings of World War II from the perspective of a young teenage girl. They read her entries in a clear font, like Times New Roman, in straight lines that no one could recreate successfully in free hand. Students dog-ear the fresh pages so they won't forget their spot as they try to grasp the concept of a young girl living in hiding.
The importance of a journal is to write for yourself. It is, in fact, your story and no one can tell it better. Anne Frank began her journal as a way to vent all her feelings out during her time in a cramped space with seven other people. She only started editing her own entries because she heard there was a need for real stories of World War II. She wanted to publish her journal to show her own life and help others understand what it was like for her and her family. On those pages she wrote her true thoughts and feelings during her time in the Annex. The diary started as a type of therapy, not in the hopes that some day people all over the world with read it. When no one else is around, a pen and paper will always listen.
When I finish writing in a journal, a whole weight lifts off of me and I can hold it in my hands. The small notebook seems to feel ten times heavier than it did before. I wonder if Anne felt the same way when she held her own finished journal. I don't write as consistently as Anne did, but I recognize the importance of writing down my own thoughts, opinions and memories. The only thing better than holding a finished journal is grabbing a clean, new journal; light as a feather and ready for all your adventure and dreams.
I encourage you to pick you a notebook and fill it up with written notes on your own life. Although at times it won't be as reiveting or historical as Anne Frank's, it will mean something to you one day.
"Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I’ve never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year old school girl. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. I feel like writing." -Anne Frank
