Nothing Was Wasted

Blossoms at Greenwood cemetery in Brooklyn, while in search of the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat's elusive grave.

I began writing in a diary when I was 11 because I wanted to be like S.E. Hinton, and write stories with boys like Ponyboy. I wanted to both marry Ponyboy and be him. I also wanted to make sense of a home life that could be violent and scary. I also wanted to write about the boy I had a crush on, and the members of Duran Duran.

I stopped writing in a journal when I went to high school. After reading Be True to Your School by Bob Green, a couple of friends of mine and I were inspired to start journaling our junior year. I still have this red spiral bound notebook and once, years ago, looked through it, and was so appalled by my sexism, angry insecurity, and pettiness I have been too spooked to look at it again.

After that, I kept a heavily illustrated, but sporadic journal of sorts. Then, when I was 21, my grandmother died. It was my first loss and a big one. She was the matriarch to a complicated and large family. She was also one of the few people who's eyes lit up when I entered a room. Once, when I decided to stack all my journals chronologically, I saw the pattern of my journals--the random notebooks and hardbound sketchbooks of various sizes. Then the moment my grandmother died, they come right after another and have ever since every 4-8 weeks.

I began my 80th journal today.

Today I am thinking about all the plane rides and train rides, and cafes and libraries, and bedrooms all over America that I sat writing and drawing and cutting and pasting in. I am thinking about the heartbreak and the leaps forward and falling back and the discovery and the dreams. I am thinking about all the pens, the ones that leaked on my fingers and in my bags, and who wrote every word and drew every face.

I dismiss so much of my own efforts, and seek out the elusive sense of accomplishment in my work and life, and then I turn to something that has been a source of constant companionship for years, and it suddenly ALL ADDS UP. Even if its just for today, in this moment, I can see that nothing was wasted. I have lived.