How to stop time?
By: Sayesha Singh
Tags: Stopping Time, Journals, Diary

How many of you seriously wonder about stopping time? Many of you right now are in your happy zones and hence wish this or maybe you are a scientist. Those who are in the sad zone, for them there is a common saying — “This shall too pass”.

But not deviating much from the topic my idea of stopping time is writing diaries. It is more like preserving time. And why I am saying this or why did I write diaries?

Well, it so happened in 7 th standard that my teacher punished me for being too talkative and changed my bench mate to a guy. Me being talkative couldn’t resist talking to him. And he was pretty interesting. One day he got this book — “Diary of Anne Frank”. I read the book, liked the pictures in it, and connected with Anne on an emotional level.

The very same day I went home and bought a diary. My first diary. For the first few days, I kept wondering what to write. But since I never break a pact with myself I was adamant that I will at least try this for a month.

You know how my diary sounded for the first few days — “I woke up at 6 am. I went to school. I had a sandwich in the break. I came home at 3 pm. I had curry for lunch. I finished my homework. I had rice with curry in dinner. Good night”.

Don’t worry you can say aloud that it sounded boring and dumb. It did. But after the first few days, I started connecting to my diaries more and more. It started becoming a friend that I never had. Nor do you have such friends. No one tells their real thoughts and whole life to anyone. We are humans and we have bad thoughts and we have a fear of getting judged.

So yes, every single thought and happening was jotted into my diary. And this became a routine.

But then my dad discovered that I write diaries. He read it behind my back (when I was in school). For a few days, my parents kept reading my diary regularly and I wasn’t aware of it.

Then how I came to know about it?

So I fought with my parents one night. And as I said we are humans with evil minds. I must have probably written down the worst for my parents. I even went to the extent to write that I might be adopted.

Yes, that day I returned home from school and my parents were really angry and hurt. We talked and I managed to make them understand that this was just a phase and I am over it. But that day I realized writing diaries is risky. It is like giving your darkest secrets to an unknown person.

I tore my diary and burnt it. I cried for days. Yes, it wasn’t the pain of break up. It was worse. It was the pain of losing your best friend. My dad saw this and realized his mistake.

He hasn’t read my diary from that instance onwards. No one in my house dared to read them. And they are safe in my locker.

So it has been years and my time has been captured in these pages. I remember most of my life vividly. Because when I am sad or bored I just pick any year’s diary and start reading them. I remember dates of events that might sound meaningless to you but are special to me. My first basketball match, the first time I went to a picnic with a friend and all the places I have visited, everything is in these pages.

Some benefits of writing diaries are-