Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Do you keep a journal???

Or is blogging it??

I have kept a diary/journal since I was about 8 or so. Someone gave me a small pink book for my birthday with a little brass lock and key and it had a ballerina on the front. The edges of the paper were gold...and it was just so so pretty! I didn't write often, but from time to time I scribbled down some of my preteen feelings. Then the teen years hit and I spilled every single detail of my life to my diary, every single day (and had to expand into more pretty little locked books....multiple volumes of my life). It became something I HAD to do and sometimes it was the only place I could vent out my deepest darkest fears, misery and frustration...I'm sure you remember high school drama.

I kept my diary writing till I was about 18 or so....and met my husband to be. My diary entries were further and further apart...and eventually I stopped all together. I thought it was because I had met my soul mate and no longer needed to spill my thoughts into a book...I had someone to share it all with.

Time passed....our wedding, our first home, trips, adventures, a baby.....and I realized that none of it...or my feelings about it all....had been documented. So while I no longer needed someone to share my feelings with, what I did miss was keeping the 'history of my life'.

I so enjoy reading my old diaries...though some of it drags on and on about certain boys I obsessed about....but I skip though some of that!! But my history is there...where I went, what I did...things with family and friends...and every entry dated.

So I started a new journal in a notebook. It just wasn't working. I spent so much time on the computer....so why not do it there. I've been doing that for almost 3 years now. And though I don't write everyday...sometimes I go weeks without, I try my best to keep it updated with the events of my life and my feelings about them. I add pictures and things too....just like I did with my old diaries....movie stubs, photo booth pics, newspaper clippings, I had it all in those little books :)

I do try and update my blog as often as possible...and decided to add those to my journal too...So some days have a regular journaling plus a copy and pasted blog post.

And I started journals for my kids. Baby books only have so much room...and so much happens after that first year or so....I write down the funny things they say and the things they do that make me so happy. Someday they'll have so much interesting stuff to read...my life...an autobiography of sorts...

7 comments:

  1. I just started journaling. It's...so weird! Well, for me, it is. I have people in my life who...well, they would take what I write--MY thoughts, MY emotions--and use them against me. I feel and think the wrong things.

    *waves hand dismissively* So I've got that going on in the back of my head the entire freakin' time. BUT! It IS very helpful AND refreshing, though, for the most part, all I ever talk about is writing. It's a safe journaling topic, apparently.

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  2. Good question! I have a personal journal that's a blog. Only I can access it. One day I'll get it printed out in hard copy so it's not just floating in cyberspace. :)

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  3. No one reads my journal...it's completely private and there are thoughts and feelings in there that I wouldn't want anyone to read...now anyway...maybe when I'm dead! LOL!! A lot of it is venting our frustrations......it's my key to mental health.

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  4. I kept a diary when I was 12 or so but I was so paranoid about people reading it, I tossed it. Now I wish I had that chronicle of my life. I do have a chronicle of the past three years...in blog form...and sometimes it's fun to go back and look where I was on this date three years ago and how far I've come.

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  5. oh my....i have kept a journal since i was around 7 or 8, too! they started out in really cute journals, turned to notebooks, and now i think email and blogging really is it for me. great post!

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  6. I haven't kept a diary in awhile even though my church suggests to keep a journal. I was keeping a dream journal until recently and I need to restart that, too. I blog a few times a week. I was trying to do it everyday and have to get back in the swing.

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  7. My blog is usually all about me..I don't really include much about my kids or my husband or family type things. So all that stuff goes in my journal.

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