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By Riley Maddox
Dear Eugene,
I received you on a brisk fall afternoon. A week earlier, I had submitted a poem to my local library's annual Halloween writing contest, not thinking anything of it. My freshman English teacher was offering extra credit for any student who submitted a piece, and the overachiever in me wanted to bump my 98 in his class to a possible 99. In homeroom, I carefully crafted a spooky-sounding poem, describing the protagonist walking through a neighborhood on an autumnal night. At the end of the day, it was a juvenile piece of work, but I wanted the extra points. When my name was called on the announcements a week later, I was in shock. “We are pleased to announce the 1st place winner of the Kenton County Library Halloween Writing Competition was one of our students. Riley Maddox, will you please come to the office to claim your prize!”
I felt all eyes on me. I slowly rose out of my squeaky wooden desk and grabbed my backpack. My heart felt like it would explode. I had won. My white Converse marched to the office, ready to receive my prize. My mind raced with ideas of what my possible prize could be: a gift card to our local ice cream shop, a t-shirt, or possibly a gift basket. I finally reached the front office and pulled back the heavy wooden door to enter. I had no idea that what was waiting for me in that office was worth more than any monetary gift or basket.
There, sitting on the front office counter, was you, a simple small journal. On the top of you was a purple Post-It note with my name written in careful cursive. Along your cover, there was an interesting pattern, made up of reds, greens, and oranges crisscrossing and intertwining. “Here you go Riley, enjoy!” the school secretary remarked as she handed me my prize.
With my new journal in hand, I walked back to my class. Once in my seat, I opened you up to the front cover. Inside was a detailed explanation of Eugene Grasset, the man who intricately designed you. I promptly decided to name you Eugene. The name stuck.
That night, I pulled you out of my messy backpack and set you on my desk. I stared at you for an unusual amount of time, debating if I would actually use you, or just end up throwing you under my bed in the graveyard of journals that had been started and never finished. I decided I wasn’t going to put any pressure on myself to write. I would write when I felt like it. And when I didn’t, I wouldn’t. It was that simple.
And there, sitting on the floor of my childhood bedroom, tired after a long day of school, I crafted my first entry: “Dear Eugene, I recently (today) got this journal. I don't know what I'm going to write in it since my life consists of eating, never sleeping enough, school, TikTok, and seasonal depression. I am excited to see where this journal takes me. I always love the feeling of getting a brand-new journal. I can't wait to see how I progress. Love always, Riley Maddox”
I continued to write to you every couple of weeks, updating you about my life, my friends, my interests, and anything else I felt was important. Having no nightly schedule, and no pressure to write actually made me more willing to carefully document all that I was feeling. You were there to listen and never to judge. To understand but never comment. That’s exactly what I needed. Then it was March of 2020. And the world shut down.
During lockdown, I was in complete isolation. Not only was I isolated from my friends and my school, but also from the world. I felt so lost, so lonely. My days were filled with pacing my room, and doom scrolling on the internet. Every time I would turn on my phone, more and more hope that life would go back to normal was lost. I turned to the only friend I knew: You. Eugene, you saved me. You offered me a place to pour my feelings out with no judgment, and no fear of failure. You allowed me to be truly myself. Reading back on my entries from freshman year, I can see myself struggling. I see that girl pouring her whole heart into that small journal, pausing only to let her brain catch up with her hands. Every day, that girl would curl up under her blankets, put on her Taylor Swift Vinyl, and let her heart go, putting everything she had into your small rectangular pages, oftentimes stained with tears and hot chocolate.
Throughout my childhood, I struggled heavily with reading and writing. When the kids in my third-grade class were moving on to chapter books and stories packed with action and adventure, I was struggling to recognize basic sight words. This would later be explained by a dyslexia diagnosis, and a glasses prescription, but at the time it shattered my self-confidence. I just wanted to be like the other kids. The kids could sit on the bus and crack open their newly stamped library books, reading without fear of not understanding any words. The kids who didn’t fail their spelling tests and knew their left from their right. The kids who could craft elegant plot lines in their stories, or as elegant as a grade-schooler can be. I wanted to be that kid. But I constantly fell short.
Watching the other kids progress at a rate that simply wasn't sustainable for me made me heavily question my self-worth. I felt stupid all the time. I avoided reading and writing like the plague, as if facing the words on the page would cause my skin to melt off of my body, and my heart to break. My parents recognized my struggles, and the summer before 4th grade I met with a nice woman named Ashley once a week at the public library. Every Wednesday, I would be dropped off at the front of the large county library, and walk through the sliding doors to the back of the building. Sitting in between the stacks of books, I slowly learned how to do what my peers had learned years before. By the end of the summer, I had started and finished my first chapter book, a feat I never thought I would accomplish. I was so proud of myself. I could do it. I could read.
Although that summer I began to understand the basics of reading, I never felt equally confident with my writing ability. Writing was a chore, and I did everything I could to avoid it. I would write the bare minimum number of sentences for assigned paragraphs at school, and always skipped extra credit writing assignments. That same attitude for writing stayed with me, all the way to freshman year. I dreaded English class, fearing that I was a terrible writer, and would never be taken seriously. I would sit down to start a paper and stare at a blank Google Doc for hours, my brain jumbled with distractions and ideas that I didn’t think were good enough. I was too scared to even try. Because I knew if I tried, I could fail. And I know how terrible that feels.
On the day I received you, Eugene, my life changed. Not only did I have an excuse to write, but I had an excuse to write and fail. I could say anything I wanted to you, and you never once judged me or told me I was wrong. You never corrected my sloppy handwriting or my poor spelling. You just sat and listened. You listened as I described in detail how much I hate going to school, and how I would often have panic attacks in the third-floor bathroom. You listened as I described the pain of losing my grandpa, and how that devastated my family. You were there when I was accepted into the Governor's Scholars Program after I worked so hard on the application. You understood me when I cried about how much I missed my parents during those five weeks. And then you comforted me when I cried after I left the program, desperately missing my best friends. Eugene, you watched me go on my first date. And then another one, and another one. You watched me slowly fall in love, and you didn't call me stupid or dramatic, or stereotype me as a boy crazy teenage girl. You sat with me and allowed me to write every feeling, every emotion, every speck of insecurity on your creme pages. You made me feel so seen.
On the night before I left for college, I sat in my childhood room, practically barren and all packed up. I stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars that I had stuck on my ceiling in the 6th grade and tried to think about all the memories that those stars had seen. I turned my bedside lamp on and reached into my nightstand, feeling for your familiar cover. Pulling you out, the journal that I carefully kept throughout my entire teenage years, I was almost brought to tears. I opened the cover, and read about Eugene Grasset, the French painter, for the millionth time. Turning the thick pages, I read every single word. That night, as I read you cover to cover, I thought about all of the ways I’ve grown since my freshman year. I am no longer afraid to write a school paper. It has become one of the things that I enjoy most about education. I love allowing myself to be creative and free. Allowing myself room to fail. I never thought that writing would become a hobby of mine. I never thought I could fill an entire journal front to back with stories of my life. Four years ago I never could’ve imagined the task that I hated so much would become the one thing that saved me. If I could visit myself in the 4th grade, and look into the eyes of the scared little girl who could barely read, I would hand her you. I would let her flip through all of the pages, and see all of the beautiful things that were yet to come. She wouldn't quite understand, but that's okay. How can anyone understand how a journal with a funny name saved a girl who hated writing? Thank you, Eugene. Love, Riley Mai Maddox.
Riley Maddox is a McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville in the class of 2027. She is studying political science and criminal justice.