My personal symbol would have to be my stack of journals. Some of them I started writing in as early as 2nd grade, and I have quite a few I have filled completely. They range in style, from bejeweled with bible verses on the cover to decorated with pride stickers and curse words. Some are beaten and soft around the edges, others still crisp with barely 5 pages filled in. Some are written entirely in dry erase marker, others have entire sections of pages dedicated to the letters of the alphabet, from when I was still worried about how my handwriting would look. 

The earlier ones have the beginnings of stories and a few diary entries. The older ones are crammed to the brim with anything you can imagine; poems, history notes, half-solved math equations, stickers from my friends, doodles of everything from ghosts to cigarettes, and pages upon pages of lists. Those are how I keep my life in some semblance of order, as well as my head. Whenever everything seems too much, which is happening more and more often, I write a list. Having it down on paper helps clear my head.

Maybe that’s why I love the journals so much, why they represent me so much. Because they are the ramblings of my head that I don’t know how to speak out loud. Having it down on paper helps clear my head.