I really wish I had done a better job journaling the last few years. My entries are scattered, interrupted, and largely unfinished since I often am scattered and/or interrupted whenever I sit down to write. I'm grateful for the journals I do have...it's so interesting to peruse entries from a decade ago and see where I've grown, matured and changed as well as the things I still continue to work through/think about. Journals are also a great cache for memorabilia (just found tickets from the Eiffel Tower in one), artistic sketches (or in my case, clippings from magazines), and poetic phrases that need to be written down.
I loved finding the entry above from a cross country trip my mom and I took from VA to Seattle in 1998...it made me smile to see that even then, the Wisconsin landscape took a hold of my heart and dragged me in.
I have journals for all the boys, although naturally, Sam's has the most written in it, since Sam was born first and had the bulk of my uninterrupted attention (his is the leather bound marbled paper one above that I purchased in Montepulciano the trip we found out we were expecting him). I've been trying to write more frequently for each boy. I haven't decided when I'll pass them on to the boys, but it will be on a significant birthday when they are much older. For quick use, I love the "My Quotable Kid" journal from Chronicle Books that Blythe gave us...each page has a space for date, place, kid, and then the quote. I keep it within easy grasp so I can write things down immediately that need to be immortalized.
I have ten years of my dreams recorded; I stopped in law school only because of time. It was the only form of journaling I was never confused by; I always found the "dear diary" syndrome perplexing. Still, I'm always horrified that someone will find mine someday and take them to be recordings of real events. This comment feels like a tangent, but suffice it to say that when and if I have children, I'll be journaling! I feel like that form, too, averts the dear diary plague.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more...now however, at the ripe old age of 32 I am running out of room for storing all the journals! I have tapered off greatly in the last few years (kids) and have done a horrible job of journaling through being a parent or keeping track of their growth (hence my blog) but I really want to get back to it.
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