1,000 Words Will Trump a Picture Every Time

My last two posts have been about my recent trip to France. But this one is about before going. I get a package in the mail with carrots and a penguin drawn all over it (it’s an inside joke), so I immediately know it’s from my big, we’re weird enough to draw penguins and carrots to each other. Anyway, she had gotten me this beautiful journal, an antique and gilded map decoration with a moving inscription inside. Since my big LJ is an English major, I’ll copy what she said and then get to my point, she puts it more eloquently than a PR major like myself can:

“If you ask me, a thousand words will trump a picture every time! PS. Sometimes a blank page is more useful  than any other person could possibly be when it comes to tough times or hard decisions—probably because to the last, it’s you!”

Now I’ve never been a big journal-er, thought it was weird that you are writing to yourself. But she has a point, it is you, no one knows you better. I was nervous for this trip, for the first time. I’ve traveled a lot, flew alone at 8 for the first time (Why they thought putting a sign saying “Unaccompanied Minor” on me still baffles me tho…), but this France trip had me nervous. I was finally in a stable relationship with my boyfriend of 6 months, finally at peace with a lot of my insecurities, so I was scared what going away for 2 weeks might do. So I wrote.

It was strangely (to me at least, a journaling skeptic) therapeutic. I looked forward to being able to write down my journeys and thoughts about the day and put my feelings about things totally unrelated to France and even my own experiences down on paper. I wrote through emotions and confusions and thoughts till the page was full with run on sentences and words that didn’t exactly match up, but to me, it made perfect sense. It was my own train of thought documented, it reminded me of James Joyce’s “Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man”.

While other people nosing through it (it doesn’t have a voice identifying lock…darn) will probably be confused with my circular writing to get to my point, but it makes perfect sense to me. Now, I’m not a person that does stuff for myself, I usually put others first and forget about myself, but I didn’t care that my journal was mine, only for me, only in my writing and for no one else, there were no rules I had to abide by, no pleasantries needed, if I was upset, I could let it show.

So here it is, straight from me to you, from a person who let all the journals and diary birthday gifts go into hiding under the bed. Try writing because there really is a zen experience. Let me know how it goes when it’s just you, a blank page, and a pen.

-–Audrey is a PR major at Marquette University. She is a proud sister of Alpha Chi Omega.  A lover of travel, reading and movies of every kind.