People try (Part 1)

People never know how to fill the pages of their diary, or how to love someone without hurting them eventually, or how to tell someone that they have found solace in them. But people try. They try to copy the pages of someone's diary, try to amend mistakes, try to look a person in the eye and voice words that are so real that they become the embodiment of happiness. And people fail. They fail to find themselves in what they wrote, they hurt them over and over again, they practise saying things that never touch the intensity of what they want to convey. But people try again. 

I have written in so many diaries. But I have completed none. I have tried writing everyday but then realised my life was uneventful. I then tried writing on days when something eventful happened or I was being dramatic but I believed that every moment is worth living for. And then it became a cycle. But eventually along the way, I found myself in those pages. I still remember the day I read through my old diary wondering who I was, a little proud of all the tiny decisions I had made, and I loved how I wrote 'This is not the end of the journey' when I had given up on completing the diary. Somewhere along the way diaries teach you how to re-invent yourself and love yourself so hard for all the flaws you make. The pages when held close to your heart will make it beat faster because of all the excitement of meeting an old you. 

It will tell you how you wrote reviews of books that no one had heard about. It will tell you about all those times you wrote about the sad characters of movies and hoped things would be fine soon. It will tell you about all the times you thought you were beautiful and all the times you didn't. It will tell you how you scribbled poems of self-love while you hated yourself. It will show you the remnants of torn pages that were stained remains of yourself that you didn't want to see. It will tell you how you loved and unloved people with the sheer power of your pen. It will tell you so many stories of yourself that you'd feel like you were meeting a long lost friend, one you thought would have always stayed around.

The pages had offered me solace when I was sad. It listened to every word I felt and drenched my tears to make me stronger. And it watched me become stronger, then it stopped being the carrier of my tears and gathered dust. A day came when I read these pages and my heart swelled with sympathy. And when I had felt sympathy instead of self-pity, I knew I had won a game that we played with ourselves. I decided it needed happy stories too. It needed pages where it didn't smudge the ink of my will power, pages that would bring a smile, pages that felt like a hug. So I started writing in colours, stuck flowers, wrote down my favourite quotes, wrote down names that brought euphoria, wrote down moments that were a part of me now, and I started writing about me.

 And with every page that I filled, I relaxed. And with every word I wrote, I remembered who I was, who I want to be and who I am. And when I closed the diary I knew I would forget about it in a day or two. But I still keep them on the shelf from where it easily catches my eyes to remind myself that I would be there for myself when I wanted to. 

People never know how to fill the pages of their diary. But people try and people fail. But people try again. And that is all that matters.