As a kid, I always loved to write. I was that kid with the imaginary friend could fill up those OG Lisa Frank diaries with wild short stories from my imagination. I loved to tell stories. I also wanted to be a journalist. Although my childhood journalist dreams are no longer, that form of story telling has translated into my semi-adult life through the form of a blue journal that goes with me everywhere.
At 15 years old, I was told to use journaling as a way to cope with my mental health. To me it was a way I could get my anxious thoughts on paper to make it less scary. It was a way for me to slow my mind down and see that what was happening in my head were just words and words on a paper aren’t that scary. I took that and really made it my own personal escape. To this day my journal is my prized possession. I use it in meetings, to take notes, it houses every to-do list or list I have made since May and everything else in between. I go through journals a lot. I love the soft leather ones and preferably blue because blue is a calming color. My journals are always on sale at barnes and nobles or amazon primed directly to my apartment.
Aside from all of that I worked as a tech journalist and ended up running the Carolinian Newspapers Social Media and Web Content for a year. Everything that was online was my responsibility. I did make some mistakes along the way but overall that experience taught me so much about where I am passionate about.
Believe it or not my more technical positions as an intern taught me a lot about the different types of storytelling. Story telling through data and queries which was such a full circle moment because I realized in those moments that I can tie what felt so natural to me to an industry that is seemingly so black and white. But it isn’t. I think that the data helps explain the gray in all of it.
Now we are here. Online and at this blog. Journaling became a way for me to express myself in a way that I wasn’t able to. At the time that I started this blog which first began in that blue journal, I felt like I wasn’t being listened to from the people around me. I honestly felt a bit misunderstood but who doesn’t when they are in their late angsty teens? I’ve come to understand that it’s totally normal to feel what I felt which was comforting but I decided to take this sense of powerlessness to change it to something positive so ironically enough I took it online.
Storytelling, to me, isn’t flat or limited. It’s pretty extensive and can adapt depending on what you want to portray. If we look closely we can see our social media feeds are just stories that people want to tell. They are characters through their own experiences and creativity. You can tell a lot about a person in the way they tell their story online or in person. This is why I love this art form so much because it is in every avenue of our lives.
Is Anyone Really Listening? 