Every time I declutter — multiple times per year since 2017 plus every time we move — my mind is immediately drawn to the two large boxes of journals and other writing stuffed in the back of my closet. They’ve survived every move, every declutter, every spring cleaning, and every the-walls-are-closing-in-on-me rampage.
I brought those boxes with me when I moved out of my parents’ house and everywhere my husband and I lived, no matter how small the space.
When I was a child, I imagined these journals would come in handy for writing my biography or autobiography someday, and more recently, I thought they’d be useful for writing a memoir. Despite this theory, I’ve only touched the boxes to try to get the contents into a smaller box. Once, I looked through the journals to find a specific drawing, and in the process, I labeled each one with the date of the first entry so I could find things easier in the future.
Over the years, I discarded a loose page here or there from these boxes, but they didn’t experience the same ruthless decluttering that my kitchen, closets, shelves, and other areas did. Instead, the collection has grown as I continue to write and fill up more and more journals.
I always considered getting rid of them, but I felt overwhelmed by the task. It was too daunting because I wanted to sit down with each of them, read through them, and perhaps even digitally capture what was within before bidding farewell to the original.
Advice from others
I read a few articles by minimalists about what to do with these journals. They all said the same thing I’m saying: It’s deeply personal and only you can decide what’s right for your situation.
I also read some reddit posts about how people felt after getting rid of their journals. Several posts even warned against discarding them because they deeply regretted getting rid of theirs, even years later. This made me really scared. Would I regret getting rid of all of this in a few years? Would I look back on this time and curse my past-self? These journals are irreplaceable. It’s not like I remember what’s in them or can go to the store and buy another one.
But I was determined to at least try. If I read through them and decided to keep them, that would also address the issue. Whether I decided to let them go or keep them, I would finally have a definitive answer.
Starting the process
For some reason, one spring Saturday at 7pm, I decided to pull the boxes out from the corner of the closet. I planned to grab a stack of journals, return the boxes to their spot in the closet, and slowly read through the journals at some regular cadence, perhaps one per week.
But getting the boxes out of the closet turned out to be a project in itself. They were in the very back and bottom of our weirdly long closet since I don’t need easy access them and they’re super heavy. I had to remove everything from the closet to get them out.
And after taking everything out of the closet to retrieve the boxes, I wasn’t about to return them to the back of the closet and go through that again in a week or two. When it was time to tidy up for the night, I put everything except these boxes back in the closet — one way or another, those boxes wouldn’t be returned to the closet in the same state as when I pulled them out.
Making progress
Getting them out of the closet was a bigger step than I’d ever taken towards letting these journals go. And I felt the emotional weight of it.
I pulled stacks and stacks of journals out of the boxes, recognizing the time period they were from based on the covers but also from the labels I’d added previously. I thought the early years would be most interesting because I had so few memories from when I was 11. I cracked one open, somewhat excited to see what lay within.
The first page of many of those early diaries was dedicated to introducing myself and my situation: My age, what school I went to, the names of my family members, including any pets.
I flipped ahead and paid close attention to pages where my handwriting shifted to larger, messier print, which often meant emotion (or a long writing session). These diaries were filled with stories about what happened that day, what was going on with school, the drama between my classmates, the boys I liked, when classmates laughed at my jokes, or when teachers praised me.
It was all incredibly uninteresting.
And the exact opposite of what I expected. I thought I would be really interested to know what happened in my life and my mind back then. Those early years are formative, and I thought they would give me insight into my behaviors now. But I found myself completely bored of my 11-year-old self’s gossip about my friend Melissa who almost told the boy I liked that I had a crush on him.
I thought I’d write more about my family, but then I remembered that I didn’t fully trust anyone in my household when I was growing up, and that I had no real space to call my own in the room I shared with my older sister. So I wouldn’t’ve written anything anywhere that would have gotten me in trouble.
So I skipped ahead to early college years.
These were difficult years because of my romantic life, and I wrote a lot about that. I skipped ahead again, looking for the point where my husband and I started becoming closer and eventually started dating.
Like most new couples, we had our share of difficulties as we learned about each other and how to be together. I cried as I read some of these entries.
A difficult and unexpected thing about reading my thoughts in these journals is that I now have a different way of seeing things after years of coaching, therapy, and other inner work. And of course, hindsight is 20/20, right?
So I was able to see one of the major events in our relationship with new eyes and identify a pattern from my previous relationship. Last night, I saw it clear as day. And then I had the opportunity now to feel bad — not only because pain from my past relationship leaked into ours, but also that I didn’t even realize it back then.
Which is extremely unhelpful because I didn’t know and I couldn’t know back then. I didn’t have the tools back then to see what I see now.
Whatever the reason, feeling bad about something that happened nearly 20 years ago is purposefully not on any of my to-do lists.
Deciding what to do
I considered getting rid of them all without reading them as planned. Reading them was drudging up a lot of memories, and I’m essentially reliving events and feelings I don’t need or want to relive.
My husband pointed out that the purpose of writing these journals was different from a travel journal, which is made for reminiscing. I followed the thought and realized he was right. The purpose of these journals was to sort out my thoughts and release my emotions at the time, not to relive the difficulties.
But the person who kept these journals (and elementary school stories and high school essays!) for all these years is a writer, and I thought I would care about 4th-grader me’s short story about Thanksgiving dinner or my 8th-grade self’s interpretation of To Kill a Mockingbird.
I thought I would find some wonderful insights or things I’d written in a beautiful way. But I realize now that the reason this project has always been on the back-burner is because I don’t have the desire or energy to read hundreds of pages of my old writing for the slightest possibility that I might find something that still resonates.
And that’s ok.
The hardest part of letting go of these has been to shift my mindset around treasuring every word I’ve ever written — and letting go of the idea that I might need them someday, much like we hold on to old clothes or kitchen tools that haven’t seen the light of day in years.
Because any lessons I learned by writing in these books have traveled with me through life. Some people think of journals as proof that they’ve lived, but for me, they’re proof that I’ve learned. They’re proof that I’m not the same person I was 5, 10, 20 years ago. And maybe physical proof of that was important to me at some point. But I know I don’t need them now.
And under what circumstances would I need an essay I wrote in 8th grade?
Easing into the process
When I pulled those boxes out of the closet, I knew the process would take a long time because I needed to be emotionally ready to commit to whatever I decided to do with them. And I knew that would take time.
I took little steps and took the time I needed with them. That first day, I looked through them for over an hour.
The next session was longer. I started with the box filled with poetry I’d typed up and collected in large binders. I figured this box wouldn’t be an issue because all I had to do was look for the digital files, and if I didn’t have them, I’d scan the pages, then discard the physical copies.
In theory, this should’ve been easy, but in reality, I had less than expected in digital form, so I ended up scanning most of it. The project took about 6 hours, but I finished it and felt good about the decision. I even let go of some of the original handwritten copies I’d kept with the printouts.
I waited for another day to sort through the journals, which were more difficult. I didn’t want to read through each one, but I felt an obligation to my past self — and my present self to leave as little room for doubt as possible — to do so. I organized the stacks chronologically and slogged through those first years of journals.
Letting go of the many, many pages on which I wrote, “I ❤️ Jonathan Taylor Thomas” and stories of things that happened in school was easy. I also discarded a few journals that were entirely in cursive and thus too difficult to read on account of my messy handwriting.
It felt like good progress.
Facing reality
The late high school and early college years were more difficult, and I sat on the task for a few weeks. When I spoke with a friend about it, I found myself saying that I don’t want them, but I still couldn’t let them go and I didn’t know why.
After our call, I went through boxes again.
As I often do when deciding whether or not to keep something, I returned to the KonMari Method. This helped me face the reality that these journals were full of painful memories and the times in my life when I was struggling with undiagnosed mental health disorders — and they brought me no joy. I’d go as far as saying reading through them again brought me distress. Realizing that made them easy to let go.
As the time period of the journals got more recent, they became less about boys and more about my internal workings. They also became more positive. I found a note about how I never thought I would find love like what I have with my husband. It was beautiful to read and remember, and it brought a big smile to my face.
That’s when I decided I’d done enough discarding for now. I’d halved the archive, and what remained were only the journals I want to read in the future.
I packed everything back in the remaining box box and put it back in the closet until I’m ready for more reading.
In closing
I gave myself ample time to consider this decision. This post covers less than 2 months, but it’s actually been years. Every time we moved since 2007, plus every decluttering since 2017, I have thought about doing this and didn’t have the courage until now.
And that’s ok! The process takes whatever time it takes. I didn’t set a deadline for myself because I thought that would set myself up to regret whatever decision I ended up making. I wanted to be as sure as you can be with decisions like this, and taking my time allowed me to feel confident in the decision.
A few weeks after I finished sorting through the boxes, I brought the discard pile to a shredding facility. I could’ve recycled them, but I wanted some sort of ritual to release them. We’re not allowed to have open flames where we live, so a burning ceremony was out of the question. I decided a shredding facility would have to do.
I was nervous while I was there, but I felt better immediately after I left. It’s been 2 months since I dropped off all those papers, and I feel confident that I made the right choice for myself. In fact, I don’t even think about it anymore and forgot about this post until I found it in my drafts.
Teena Merlan 