What I Want To Pass On

When I was little, I was obsessed with the Junie B. Jones books by Barbara Park. By the time I had finished first grade, I had read the entire series. I had the holiday books—Easter, Christmas, Fourth of July. I loved Junie B. I remember being in Kindergarten and telling my mom and my grandma about how it felt like Junie B. could have been in my class—she felt like a real kindergartener!

Needless to say, my love for books told in first-person started very young.

I was only a couple of years older when I told my mom that, one day, my kids were going to read those books. I was going to keep them all and pass them down. I still plan on that, the whole series is still underneath my bed, packed away with my other favorite books from that time. I know it’s unreasonable to assume that my children will have the same love for the same books I did/do, but I remember how fun it was when I played with my mom’s old Barbie dolls at my grandma’s house, and the baby dolls that barely made noise when you pulled the string on their backs.

I’ve been thinking about this idea again lately. When I read nonfiction books, I tend to read them with a highlighter nearby so I can mark quotes and ideas that I think are important or beautiful. Some of my books have sticky notes sticking all the way out of them, marking my favorite pages (in some cases it looks like every page was my favorite, and that’s a fair assumption). I like to imagine my future children looking through my bookshelf, almost like a library, and picking a book to read and coming across some highlighted pages. Again, I know exactly how unlikely that is, but you can’t blame me for dreaming. I want my kids to see what I've highlighted in these books, what words spoke to me, at certain points in my life. Maybe some of my books will be collectibles one day, and my grandchildren will decide whether or not to sell them or keep them in the family.

I am positive that I'll have more to pass on than just books, but I also know that those may be the most personal things I leave behind.

My grandmother was meticulous about journaling. She wrote about what she did every day for decades. When she passed away in 2020, I had a passing thought about those planners, but never followed through.

A few months ago, my parents and I went to my grandpa's house to look for any pictures Grandma might have had to give to her high school reunion. As we were looking through her dresser, unsure of where she might have put them, we stumbled upon three of these planners.

One was from her high school years, the other two more recent. We took them home with us that night, with Grandpa’s permission, but neither my mom nor I have read through them yet. Grief is hard.

When I write in my journal now, I think of my children and grandchildren reading I one day. Reading about my struggles in school, my mental health journey–things that are too personal to write about here.

I hope they can learn something from my experience, whether that be that their own mental health matters, or that I was once their age.