Journaling
I have a love/ hate relationship with writing in journals. I love to buy them, I love the concept of filling the books up with the things that happen to me, good and bad, on a daily basis. But that feeling subsides when I look at the half filled journals that I have. There has only been one journal that I have owned in my entire life so far that I completely filled...and I threw it away.
My friend Karen and I each bought a small journal and promised that we would fill it up over the course of the next year and then exchange them so that we could read each other's journal. Well, I finished my journal, but then Karen and I lost touch...then I read what was in the journal and decided that I didn't want to remember anything in it. So...I threw it away.
Not long after that, I bought another journal, a really nice one I might add..and it basically logged a series of unfortunate events. Pages of desperation and confusion. So I threw that one away as well...and didn't write in a journal for a long time.
Looking back, I wish I hadn't thrown them away. Because as the saying goes, we learn from our mistakes. Well how the heck am I going to learn if I forget them? And if nothing else they were a part of me.
Anyway, I decided at the beginning of this year I would reconnect with my journaling. So I bought myself a nice little red journal. And I also made the stipulation that this journal would be specifically for 2005, so regardless if I fill all the pages, I will buy a new on for 2006 [yay for shopping!]. I don't write in it every day, but I write what I think is relevant--and it can't be all bad stuff.
Then I went a little crazy...I bought a journal for each of my children. Not for them to write in, but for me in it to them. My intention is that I will write to them on their birthdays or other significant events throughout their life, and when I am gone...they will have an account of my thoughts for them.
I didn't do very well with the baby books, and those are journals of sorts. Kimi doesn't even have a baby book...I've taken to saving certain trinkets of their childhood rather than writing everything down. The objects are more tangible.
I do want to explain that I journal not because I think that what I have to say, or what I experience has any more importance than anyone else. I do it becuase I don't want to get out of the practice of writing and sharing ideas. And I simply don't want to forget things.
I lost a big record of myself when I threw those journals away. And I realize now that there are big blocks of my life that I simply don't remember [that were never journaled at all]. It's a shame, because I've been to a lot of really interesting places, but if you ask me any specific details I couldn't really tell you. Ok that's not true, I just wish I could remember more.
I found that it would have been nice when I woke up that one day and said "who am I? How did I get here? Am I right? ...am I wrong? what have I done? " and been able to reach for a journal and say.....oh yeah, thats who I am.
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
posted by Kassi Gilbert @ 5:42 PM
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