Maria Faller writes about finding her teenage diaries, written in composition books:

I have journaled on and off for most of my adult life. As a kid, I journaled all the time, but we called it a diary. Keeping a locked diary was one of the cool things to do in the 80s, but it was also something I quite enjoyed. I had many fancy pink, purple and unicorn designed diaries as a child. As a teenager, I wrote in composition notebooks, tracking the details of my friendships, my crushes, family life and everything in between. I must have filled up 20 of these marble notebooks with my thoughts, dreams and feelings.

Until very recently, I had forgotten the content of those journals. Twenty years ago I had given them to a trusted family member for safekeeping because they were full of my most precious and deepest secrets. After selling her house and cleaning it out, my box of journals was found and returned to me. When this treasure arrived on my doorstep, I felt as if I were about to unleash the powers of the Universe. I thought that, somehow, sifting through these books would provide the answers to so many of my adult life questions. I was sweating with anticipation. I sat with my long-lost journals, a cup of coffee and began the momentous reading event.

Read more: The Marble Notebooks that Unraveled Me