Noticing the unnoticed: a final reflection on the Journey Journal

     It's been eight weeks since we first started our Journey Journal in class. As a result, I hold in my hands a recollection of most main events that occurred in my life during this period of time. This may seem funny to you, but I somehow feel different. I feel like I'm a different person from the one who wrote down that first entry... isn't that weird? It's only been a couple of weeks, how can I already feel different? Who we are is not a permanent state, but an active process. We change who we are all the time, it's just one of those journeys that we're so used to, that it's hard to notice we're experiencing it at all. It's sort of like being on Earth and traveling around the sun at 460 meters per second... [pun intended]. :P

     Not only do our identity and personality evolve continuously, but in order to be who we are, we need to first choose who we want to be and then constantly remind ourselves of it. Having it all written down, making each moment so concrete by permanently turning it into ink, makes me think about one of my favorite subjects: time. So tricky, isn't it? It appears to be linear, only it's not (or at least we think it's not). How could so many different things happen to me in just eight weeks?
     I've got a pretty intense and busy lifestyle by choice, mostly because of the mixture between my work and college life, but also because I can't stay put for one second and therefore insist in not only juggling a million things at once, but also working out every day and keeping myself active. But when I say there's been a lot going on I'm not just talking about all this, but also about all the ups and downs in my mood and internal journey as well. Geez, I had no idea us women were that complicated! Reading back on it, I'm amazed by the roller coaster of emotions we go through each day. I don't know how we do it... heck, I don't know how our significant others keep up with it!

Sounds familiar

     All joking aside, after completing my journal I felt a tremendous amount of gratitude. I realized (yet again) that I am so lucky for all the great opportunities in my life, as well as the beautiful people that walk by my side. With the hustle of our daily lives, sometimes it's easy to forget these kinds of things. I found that taking ten minutes out of each day to meditate upon every event, check in with my inner self and keep a record of it all was highly therapeutic. The fact that I had to write every thought as it popped into my head (and many times choose between competing thoughts) played a great part upon making me notice those things that I gave more importance to than others and making me understand my own process of translation between the world and how I internalize it in my mind. Time flies, and sometimes it can make life seem like a flash of residual memories from random events. Writing this journal really helped me tap into each feeling, each thought, and solidify all of these memories, making them remain more vividly and granting me access to greater depths of my soul.

In conclusion... ^