Deep breath in… and out…

Yes, I’m doing it.

I’m exposing my younger self through my diary from fifth and sixth grades.

While I wasn’t always super consistent with my diary, there are quite a few entries that reveal what my everyday life was like during these simpler yet eventful years. I thought it would be fun to react to some of them and see if maybe I could learn a thing or two from my younger self. So without further ado, here are some snippets from my life circa 2017-2019!

My Reaction:

Wow, my grammar was on point with this one. I loved “righting” in my diary as a kid, and now I take pride in “writing” for The Nest.! Aside from that, I’m realizing that I mostly wrote about simple mundane things like what I did at recess. But that’s okay because I’m grateful that as a sweet little girl those were the only things I had to worry about. Many of us spent our childhoods wishing we could be older, but as I’m actually getting older I’m learning to appreciate where I am right now because one day I’ll miss it.

My Reaction:

First of all, I would just like everyone to know that my performance of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey was absolutely iconic, and I wish I still had the confidence to pull that off. Also, I don’t know why those dancers bothered me so much. I was probably secretly jealous because I’ve never been a dancer and I always wished I was better at it. But of course, my fifth grade self didn’t want to admit that! Since then, I’ve learned to appreciate my own strengths while also celebrating others’ talents. While my musical talents may not be as conventionally “cool” as those of dancers or athletes, learning to embrace them has made me so much more comfortable in my own skin. 

My Reaction:

Yep, I was that kid. The academic overachiever who always got high grades. I was very competitive with that, and when someone else came out on top, I felt defeated. If I could go back, I would tell little eleven-year-old me to keep striving to do MY best, but to not get too caught up in trying to be THE best. In the long run, it doesn’t matter how I compare to other people. It’s more important that I am happy with how I perform and can find a balance between school/work and the rest of my life.

My Reaction:

Again with the academic competition! I think at this point I was starting to realize that winning these types of things was not as valuable as I previously thought. I even composed a few words of wisdom – “Failure is success if you learn from it.” – leave it to my sixth grade self to casually drop an inspirational quote in the middle of a diary entry.

My Reaction:

I clearly have not changed one bit! While I love socializing and doing fun things with friends, I’ll admit that staying home is usually a very appealing option. I had nothing against those friends from that party – they were very sweet and fun – but I just wasn’t feeling it that day I guess. The biggest thing I can learn from this is dealing with FOMO – fear of missing out. Whenever I miss out on parties I wasn’t invited to, dances I didn’t get a date to, concerts I couldn’t get tickets to, etc etc, I can’t stop thinking about it. It happens to the best of us. But I have to remind myself to be grateful for what I am experiencing, and then I won’t feel bad about missing out on other stuff that wasn’t meant for me. And everyone forgets about it soon enough anyway.

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Where do I go with this conclusion? I was expecting to end this article with some sort of deep, insightful realization about myself. However, I still have so much to learn. We all keep growing in wisdom and learning new things in every stage of life.

Looking back at my old diary entries has shown me how much I’ve grown since then. But one thing that will never change is that I’m still the same 10/11-year-old girl who wrote them, and a part of me always will be. ♡