More about journaling…

More About Journaling!

These are 50 years of my journals!

One summer project was cleaning out my desk. This one long drawer holds nearly all my journals, starting with the one in 1967. They are in many shapes and sizes. Some were gifts, others I bought myself. Smaller ones were well suited to traveling. And something about a pretty book with nice paper makes me want to write in it!

Journals come in handy. If the family is having an argument about what place they went on vacation in some year, or in what park we saw an eagle for the first time, then …..I can look it up in my journal and give a definitive answer!

I should explain that I don’t write everyday. Some people do. Me, I have never been good at anything that required that degree of regularity except brushing my teeth. Repetition isn’t my thing. If I had to do a job where you do the same thing over and over, I would be so miserable. Other people love repetition. Not me.

But the coolest thing now, is looking back on all the journals and visiting my earlier self. Who I was, what I was doing, what bothered me, what made me happy. When I was a kid, I read about Ralph Waldo Emerson. He lived long ago, and spent time in Maine where I live. I saw where he wrote, “Whatever you write, preserve.” I took his advice seriously. So the journals have been one way. I also have file folders of other things I have written.

So, I hauled out all those journals, and read sections of each. Now, it’s time to put them away for a while.