How I cope with stress lately

My diary has gone out the window.  I wrote my first diary in first grade, when my mom told me it might be nice to record my daily thoughts.  I remember going to Staples and getting a Mead cardboard back notebook with painted peonies on the cover.  It was an extremely satisfying and fulfilling moment when I finished writing that diary of mine, almost as if I’d closed another period of my life. However, in middle school, I noticed my diary entries begin to decrease with the accretion of extracurriculars and school work.  I began to write less regularly, and whenever I managed to scrape some time together to write an entry, it would always be an outline of everything I did that particular day and rarely included my thoughts, emotions, and feelings.  

Since coming to Andover though, I’ve found another way to write meaningful “diary” entries.  This is through my community engagement.  I do Adopt-a-Platoon, where each week, I write a letter to a soldier.  Our school sends letters to a platoon in Poland, and although I never get responses back, in these entries we’re supposed to write about positive things that happen in our lives (in general, writing about happiness).  This is my third term doing Adopt-a-Platoon, and it’s honestly one of the more relaxing minutes during my Monday night.  It’s fairly relaxing being able to decorate a colorful letter, and write about positive things that happened in the week, and is almost like a mindfulness exercise.  In English, my teacher also requires us to keep a journal.  We can write about anything, but this term especially, I’ve found myself writing more about my emotions and feelings.  

This may seem like a somewhat random post, but I’ve been thinking about how I cope with stress lately.  My tactics have varied from year to year, but throughout middle school and for at least the first two terms of high school, exercise was my go-to.  It was fast paced, it got my adrenaline pumping, and I could simultaneously blast my favorite playlists and exercise continues to be my go-to stress reliever. However, I’m finding that writing is also helping me understand my feelings.  More so, why I feel the way I feel, rather than exercising and banishing all the stress go away, only to find it return sometime later.  I’ve been writing in my English notebook about my feelings and things that have been stressing me out.  I’ve noticed how it’s always similar things that stress me out: social life and major assessments. It’s a repeated pattern, and I think I’ve been finding that through my writing down my feelings.  Writing slows down time, and it reminds me to notice what’s happening in my life, rather than scurry through life, tackling one task after another.