Journals
I got my first journal on my ninth birthday, and from that day until I went to college I wrote nearly every day. My early entries were basically laundry lists of what I did each day, but my teenage journals were a dumping ground for the fevered angst of adolescence–when I look back at them (once a decade or so), I seriously consider burning them because I can’t imagine that reading the negativity, criticism, and vitriol I unleashed could be of value to anyone. Certainly, they make me cringe at the person I was back then. Perhaps having my journal to release the gunk into allowed me a more positive interaction with human beings; I can’t say. But once I was out of high school, my journal-keeping habit evaporated.
For a while I used a calendar to record events in my life; since then I have tried voice recording, gratitude journals, listmaking, and scrapbooking as ways to document myself, but to no lasting avail. I have bought and abandoned many a beautiful little writing book, tried calligraphy, took a photojournalism class, and began (but not continued) ongoing letters to each of my children in my word processor, all in an attempt to coerce myself into following prophetic counsel I received in childhood to keep a journal. I pity the person (including myself, which is why I haven’t done it) who tries to gather, organize, interpret, and tease meaning from the various media I’ve employed over the years.
Now there’s blogging. I don’t see myself setting up my own blog, since it would probably end up in the Boneyard of Nagging Guilt, too–but an e-trail of even a sometimes-commenter like myself might give someone a clue or insight into my core, I suppose. That makes me cringe, too.
Why does it even matter? My life isn’t even very interesting, much less extraordinary, and despite my years as a (freshman comp) writing teacher, I really don’t enjoy writing. What benefits have you found in continuing to try? What works?
Great question. I started my journal when I was 13, and didn’t really know what to say, so I wrote about my favorite music, did fake Top 10s of my favorite music or movies. Then in November of 1990, I began a journal that I’ve written in every single day for the past 16 years. I wrote one line a day.
I’ve written about this particular topic on my family’s blog:
On This Day…
You can take a look there at examples. The interesting thing is that for the most part, I remember each incident clearly, from just simply writing a few scant lines.
Comment by Dan — October 20, 2006 @ 9:38 am
I have a journal, have since I was about twelve. I used to write every night without fail, even if it was just to say I was too tired to write. I don’t write as often anymore, sometimes not for months. I try to write about my thought and feelings more then what I did that day. I don’t read my teenage journals, they are too embaressing. I was such a twit. But I keep them and will probebly read them when my kids are that age so I can remember what it was like when I was that age. I would love to read my moms journal, the ones she kept as a young mother. Just to get to know her better. We have a journal that was kept by my great, great grandmother when she was in her 20’s. She was a christian missionary to China and it tells about the ship ride over there and meeting her husband who was also a christian missionary to China. I’m glad she kept it. Everyday life things for her are so different then what we do today, it is neat to read about.
I also write because it helps me de-stress at the end of the day. If I put it all down on paper, it’s easier for me to let go of anger or hurt, but I also remember the good things better once they are written down. As for what works best? I keep my journal by my bed and scriptures and after I read, I write for a few min. Good luck!
-C.
Comment by purplesandel — October 20, 2006 @ 9:45 am
I got a beautiful journal for Christmas when I was 11. Nearly 20 years later it still sits, 1/3 full and most of that adolescent angst and bitterness. I’ve considered burning it too. I have three, maybe four beautiful little writing books all embarked on with the hope of a lovely journal that will help me become a better person and provide valuable insights to later generations. I wish I could follow the prophetic counsel but because my journal entries so rarely fit the expectations that I have for them, I find it duanting and depressing.
I know I need to change my expectations but that’s easier said than done. I also need to master the ability to summarize– I seem to feel that my entries should be novel-quality depictions of everything that happened. Heh.
Comment by Proud Daughter of Eve — October 20, 2006 @ 10:00 am
I know it seems like our lives are too boring to write about, but I’m fascinated by the things I’ve read teh few times I glanced through my dad’s journal. He’s been writing as long as I can remember.
Comment by jjohnsen — October 20, 2006 @ 11:00 am
My journals have been sporadic since I was about 11. Nowadays, I blog - I keep an online picture journal, which is mainly pics of the kids, but it does chronicle our lives a little, and since we’ve been living overseas for the last 4 years+ it’s a nice way for our families to see us.
Comment by Rebecca — October 20, 2006 @ 11:06 am
I also was very good about keeping a journal in high school and college. Something about all that angst that just needs an outlet, I guess. But then my senior year of college I got engaged, and since then I’ve written very little. Maybe a page every 3 months on average (in high school and college I generally averaged a page a day).
I don’t know what the answer is, but I think it’s an interesting subject to discuss. Lately I haven’t worried a bit about my own journal, because I’ve been trying to keep journals for my kids (I’m behind on them, but not nearly as behind as I am on my own). My mom kept a journal for each of us kids from the time we were born until we were 8, when we started keeping it ourselves, and I still love to go back and read it. I’d like my kids to be able to do the same, so I try really, really, hard to keep journals for them.
I also have a website that is basically a picture album with captions, so that’s a type of record, and something my kids can look back on to see what they were doing when.
Mostly I think it’s healthier that I don’t really keep a journal any more. In high school and college it was a place to vent and talk about whatever I wanted, etc, but it stopped because I got engaged and started talking to my fiance (now husband) about all that stuff. And I think it’s much healthier for me to talk with him about things that are upsetting me than to write about them in my journal…
Comment by Vada — October 20, 2006 @ 11:32 am
I was a diligent writer until I had children, and then the time and energy sort of waned. I am planning on doing a “small plates” kind of version, to focus on the most spiritual aspects of my life, and to give someone (if anyone will ever care) a more condensed version of the things that are most important.
I don’t think we can ever imagine that anyone would care, but I wish my grandma had done more personal history kinds of things. She had a little diary that was priceless to read, but ended when she got engaged. Few of us know much about her thoughts and feelings about life. I wish we knew more. I think understanding her would help us understand our family (good and bad). It’s hard to project into the future, but people do care about this stuff.
Also, not that anyone plans on dying, but I know a family who lose their mother and her journals were priceless to have. Some of the children will be able to “know her” even though they were fairly young when she passed away.
Comment by mullingandmusing (m&m) — October 20, 2006 @ 11:40 am
I’ve gone through all kinds of journal phases over the years. Sometimes I write almost constantly, and sometimes I don’t write for months. My current system, which I am not at the moment following very diligently, ties journal writing to prayer and scripture study. In my ideal life I would take time every morning to study the scriptures and write my thoughts about them and about my life in my journal. Instead, having stayed up too late the night before, I sleep in until the last possible moment and then read blogs as I eat breakfast instead. This is one of those things I’m always resolving to change, but I’m obviously not changing since here I am, blogging instead of writing in my journal.
With all due respect to President Kimball’s quote about how the angels may someday quote from one’s journal and about lovely accounts of one’s spiritual experiences for posterity, ditching the idea that my journals were for anyone else was the beginning of my journal liberation. My journals are for me. I think of them as life workbooks. I like combining journaling with scripture study because it allows me to forge connections between my ideals and religious convictions and the day-to-day circumstances of my life.I try to lay out things that are bothering me, problems, frustrations, and come up with new ways of thinking about them or enduring them if I can’t solve them. I couldn’t do that if I had an eye on posterity and felt as if I had to append some faith-promoting platitude to my irritation at my lost car keys, my own slothful habits, my students, my professors, my fellow Mormons, and God.
When I die I want my journals burned.
Comment by Eve — October 20, 2006 @ 12:15 pm
My journals are for me. I think of them as life workbooks.
That’s part of the reason I want to do a condensed version.
Comment by mullingandmusing (m&m) — October 20, 2006 @ 12:19 pm
I always felt a vague sense of guilt for my failure to keep a journal. Than I read that when Sherri Dew was writing her biography of Neal A. Maxwell, shw found that there were few primary sources, because he didn’t keep a journal.
Since I believe in following the brethren, I will follow elder Maxwell’s example.
Comment by Mark IV — October 20, 2006 @ 12:31 pm
I’ve said that too. My journals are for me. People have said to me that it is so wonderful that I write in my journals so my kids can read them. I plan on writing “kid friendly” journals when I have kids that I will let them read, but MY journals are for me and me only. I will be buried with my journals or they will be burned.
My journals (of which I have about 11 or 12 for the past 10 years) are so personal and reveal the way deep inner thinking that I need to get out. My journals from when I was a teenager are full of everything negative I could think of at the time. I also am embarrassed reading about who I was. But it was a release. I had an experience where my mother read my journal. I had said horrible things about her and I don’t think what I had written truely expressed how I felt, but it crushed her. It caused a huge riff between my mother and I. I wish she had just never read it. I will never read my childrens journals either. I’ve never bought the thing that journals wiill be read by angels. Especially mine because I can’t see the angels reading cuss words and paragraph long complaints about church or work or relationships.
Comment by Lyndsey — October 20, 2006 @ 12:38 pm
I’ve been a fairly consistent journal-writer for much of my life. However, like Eve, I want my journals obliterated when I’m gone. (I believe at some point we actually made a deal that whoever lives longer will make sure that the other peron’s journal is destroyed unread when she dies.) The whole idea of writing for future generations has always creeped me out a little.
I mostly journal as a way of processing things; it tends to be very introspective, and focused on what’s going on with me internally (as opposed to the external events of my life). And I actually think it’s a positive that I’ve come to do it less over the years. Like Vada, I’ve found that I write less as I talk about stuff with other people more, and for me that’s been a good development.
Comment by Lynnette — October 20, 2006 @ 12:42 pm
Mark IV, that’s my kind of followin’ the brethren!
Lynnette, heh heh, that’s right! Our pact to burn. Good deal. We ought to see if any of our other sisters (or brother, or wonderful only sister-in-law, or fellow ZDs, or other friends) wants in.
My journals are so introspective they bug even me when I go back over them trying to find a record of something or other in my external life and find that I didn’t even mention anything that happened to anyone else, I was too busy writing about the blue butterflies fluttering their tiny delicate wings in my belly button, as it were. As Vada & Lynnette have said, maybe journaling isn’t always the healthiest activity in which I could engage.
Just have to say that I’ve really enjoyed reading Idahospud’s and Janet’s posts, both. You’d make great FMH permabloggers….
Comment by Eve — October 20, 2006 @ 1:02 pm
I experienced the same laundry list journaling (we seemed to eat chicken a lot when I was a kid) followed by vicious years of angst (I would write when I was frustrated, but never thought to when I was happy). Through my years at college I did a pseudo-job of returning to my laundry lists occasionally punctuated by angst. Finally, three years ago, I finally found a system that worked for me.
That system was that every Sunday I would write abou twhat I was thinking about, what was bothering me, and what I observed while writing it. My journal from those years is about 1/3 recipies I wished to hold onto, 1/3 scripture commentary, and 1/3 joys, frustrations, and observations of the week. I can look back on these journals to see how my understanding of the world and the Gospel has matured over the years. There is certainly no great piece of literature or great insight into the times to be found in my journal other than, perhaps, my own lack of skill in the English language and my own ignorance of the political and international worlds.
A nice thinga bout email is that I’m always able to keep a copy for myself. Much of my scrapbook is supplemented by emails that I wrote to others about an event (which rarely make it to my journal as I’m too busy experiencing life to write about it)> My scrapbook is my way of documenting pictures, saving scraps, and illustrating the thinsg that excite me. Somehow, I think it is my scrapbook that has the highest potential value to others; when I was a kid it fascinated me to thumb through all the cards and artificats she had saved as a kid - a link to something that happened before my memory.
Six months ago I began to supplement my journal with a blog - things that interest me on a daily basis - things that I never thought to include within my personal journal. Anything that I think “Hey! This is nifty, I’d like to share that with someone.” Goes in my blog. Such things include my rants about taboos broken by other people I witness to the pretty pattern the noodles made in the bowl today.
Comment by Janell — October 20, 2006 @ 1:08 pm
It’s interesting to think about email and blogs as other kinds of records of one’s life. It occurs to me that even if Eve and I succeed in having our journals destroyed, we (along with the rest of our siblings) have two Yahoo groups with over sixteen thousand messages to date, and now of course a blog as well. It’s difficult to guess the future of the internet–but should this kind of stuff survive the years, I would imagine that many of our generation will leave behind so many primary sources as to utterly overwhelm our descendants.
Comment by Lynnette — October 20, 2006 @ 1:42 pm
i have been somewhat sporadic in keeping a journal. would go months and then write a few lines but since i have become more relaxed about it ( not feeling i should write every day) i actaully have written better over the last 3 years then ever., and yes some of its boring and a . lot of it is venting frustratoion usually in my secret code!! but i get the jist - but may not want my kids to know of my really perrsonal problems!!
when i was in YW i wrote “letters to my children” i still have them they are somehere in the attic and more than once the spirit has prompted me to get them out to show my daughter when she was beginning to become inactive - don”t know if it may have made a huge differnce but it might have helped. next time DH is up there must ask him to ge t my box down before its too late!”!!
my mum wrote some poems just before she died and they are really precious to me.
Debra UK
Comment by debra — October 20, 2006 @ 2:39 pm
For the last few years I have using the internet for my journaling. I figure it is better than not at all.
Comment by Jo — October 20, 2006 @ 2:50 pm
I was very faithful in writing in my journal until my mission. I had one companion that I detested. I hated him so much that I stopped writing because I did not want to remember any of my time with him.
I’ve never been very good at it ever since.
Comment by CS Eric — October 20, 2006 @ 2:52 pm
Re: Lynnette, #15, not being possessed of the spirit of Elijah in the slightest degree, I guess I figure any descendants I have will have other things to do with their time than read their great-grandmothers’ 16,000 email messages. Sheesh, I’M not sitting around reading my ancestors’ journals. (Heresy to follow, apologies to my sister Elbereth who loves this stuff and works for the church family history department): sorry, but booooring.
Comment by Eve — October 20, 2006 @ 2:55 pm
Eve, consider this your call to repentance. If you don’t change your attitude, when you arrive in the next life they’re going to say “into this little room,” and then force you to read sixteen thousand emails as penance.
Comment by Elijah — October 20, 2006 @ 3:16 pm
most of my journal entries are about things that have already passed because i lead a veeeery boring life. i skipped a few years of journal writing and want there to be a record of how i met my husband, our kids, and so on, so i’m catching up. it’s never occurred to me that someone wouldn’t want to read them because i adored reading my mom’s journals and we’re just in general a sentimental type o’ family. i loved reading about my mom’s pregnancy with me and her struggles as a new mom, all after ten years of infertility battles, also documented. it took an additional seven years to have my sister and the personal aspects of mom’s life as a mom are fascinating to read.
i love my little sister’s journal and how she wrote, at age seven, that she couldn’t wait till my then-boyfriend was her brother. it took almost ten years, but it was sweet as she read aloud the words of an innocent child that were yet so descriptively profound… and read them aloud at our wedding.
i’ve only recently felt a little more comfortable in myself to be open in my journals about things with which i struggle. part of putting on the facade, my journals paint a pretty picture (except for the teen angst ones) and that’s hardly the case. someone’s post on another blog and a comment in church led me to write a bit about struggling with depression, though i couldn’t bring myself to call it more than “feeling blue.” but i’m working on it…
Comment by just me — October 20, 2006 @ 3:46 pm
I decided a long time ago that the best favor I could do posterity on the journal front would be refusing to shape my journal entries according to some “spiritually inspiring” template I constructed in my head. If they want to know their mother, they will know her–and they’ll know she got pissed off, experienced faith failures, and pondered the bellybutton butterlies way too much (excellent image, Eve!).
*To Kill a Mockingbird*’s Scout said “I did not love to read. One does not love breathing” and that’s how I feel about writing in a journal. It’s how I process my life; it’s not really a choice. Burning it would be–and there are pages I’ve considered burning. But it seems somehow disloyal to my former self. I’ll have to think about it some more.
Anyhow, I think we do a great disservice to posterity if we purposefully try and make journals inspiring. They will inevitably ring false and make liars out of us. Yech.
Comment by Janet — October 20, 2006 @ 3:59 pm
I also bequeathed my journals to my younger sister for her to burn. Although, maybe I will just burn them now, before I die . . . Whenever I read my journals I am so embarassed about who I have been in the past. But I suppose that is just part of life. Maybe some people’s journals are quotable, but mine definitely isn’t. As most people have been saying, mine is more full of angst than revelation, so it won’t do any good to any angels. I guess even if I were to burn my journal, it could still be recorded in the heavens what I have written . . . does anyone know how to burn a journal’s spirit?
Comment by cmac — October 20, 2006 @ 4:01 pm
Lydsey, I can relate. I found out my younger sister read my journal when I read hers (we were both adolescents and apparently snoopy). It was awful, all round. She’d written about how she hated me, etc etc etc. I adored her and it broke my heart, and ushered in a less than idyllic few years between us. I totally get where she was coming from….now. And she remains one of my favorite people on the entire planet, but I’d have done fine without knowing there were moments she wished an asteroid would obliterate her. Serves me right for snooping!
Comment by Janet — October 20, 2006 @ 4:02 pm
Whoa, bad freudian slip. Guess I was madder at her for reading my journal than I thought :). That penultimate sentence should end with the word “me.”
Comment by Janet — October 20, 2006 @ 4:04 pm
I found my 85 year old Grandmother’s journals in a closet in her bathroom. I thought “oh, neat.” and then I opened them up.
She has written every day for DECADES. By each day was only a short paragraph, unless something exciting happened, which then warranted more time.
I had an amazing experience reading about her wedding day. About my mother’s birth. About my mother’s wedding day. About MY birth. About my grandfather’s death and funeral. Then I saw the entry from the day before and I was so proud of her for keeping these memories; not just for her, but for me as well.
I wrote faithfully in my journals from 6 years old until my 1st child was born. It’s been touch and go ever since (although my blog has turned into a journal of sorts).
Now I’m thinking my Grandma is onto something…
Comment by cheryl — October 20, 2006 @ 4:22 pm
Anyhow, I think we do a great disservice to posterity if we purposefully try and make journals inspiring.
Just to clarify: I plan to keep my unedited journals. But my patriarchal blessing counsels me to focus particularly on spiritual events, so I wanted something like that in a more condensed form because I’m longwinded. But if they want to know more of the struggles and such, too, they will be there.
Comment by mullingandmusing (m&m) — October 20, 2006 @ 4:42 pm
And, for what it’s worth, as I have tried to focus on (or at least include) the inspiring in the midst of the struggle, it has helped me along the way. I don’t think it’s good to sugar coat things; part of why I wish I had more of Grandma’s journals is to understand more of her struggles as well as the joys. But by the same token, I think there is much benefit for those who write and those who might read to be able to leave a spiritual legacy along with the sort-through-life-and-vent kind of stuff. (Often the Spirit has taught me and helped me as I have written and sought for the spiritual lessons in my life, even when things have been hard.)
Comment by mullingandmusing (m&m) — October 20, 2006 @ 4:53 pm
The concept of a journal has always appealed to me. But I’ve never been able to keep one consistently. When I do write, I struggle to find the right tone. I would want my journal to reflect who I actually am, warts and all. If I write and assume that someone will read it someday, then I self-edit way too much. Yet, I can’t bring myself to write like no one will ever read.
I also wonder does anyone out there share their journal with their spouse? I know that if I were to start keeping a consistent personal journal, that my wife would be interested in reading it. If I asked her not to, I am confident that she would respect my request. But I think that she would wonder why, after 10 years of wedded bliss, I suddenly had a journal she couldn’t read. Of course if I allow her to read it, then I would really self-edit out anything that I didn’t want to get into a lengthy discussion with her about, so it doesn’t feel authentic.
So I get around that by not journalling at all.
Comment by Spencer — October 20, 2006 @ 4:58 pm
This is a bit of a tangent, but I (like Eve) struggle to summon up much interest in learning about my ancestors. Two of my grandparents died before I was born, one died before I was a year old, and the last died when I was seven (and I hardly knew him). I suppose that this lack of connection could have inspired me to want to learn more about them, but at least thus far in my life it’s had the opposite effect; I’m just not all that interested. And I have to wonder whether that’s contributed to my failure to really “get” this notion of keeping records for posterity.
Comment by Lynnette — October 20, 2006 @ 5:11 pm
“Elijah,” engaging in online gender-bending, are we?
I have it on good authority that somewhere there’s a “little room” full of Sumerian homework and Akkadian quizzes to grade just for you because you’re so very, very special! (We finally decided to OK your ancient language study because those swirly-twirly scripts are, well, feminine.)
Your sister in the gospel and in every other way,
Eve
Idahospud, sorry sorry sorry…I don’t know what’s wrong with my brain. It just spouts tangents. This is how I start out talking to my students about the Tempest and before I know it, we’re discussing whether Abraham Lincoln was gay….
Ahem. Back to journals.
Comment by Eve — October 20, 2006 @ 5:16 pm
I used to be an avid journal writer until the blog. Now, I blog. Sad, but true.
My husband’s grandmother died not long after we were married, and I literally had only met her once–in her nursing home where she told me that she had to hide her clothes because the staff were constantly stealing them from her. My one encounter with her did nothing to further my relationship with her, as she barely remembered her own grandchildren, much less a new in-law.
Yet she was an avid journal writer, and her journals, I have to say, are nothing special. Laundry lists, as has been mentioned, snippets here and there about her kids, a particularly interesting essay about the man my MIL married after she divorced my FIL. But as ordinary as they were, I was completely and totally captivated, and spent about an hour with these journals until my MIL took them away, I think in embarrassment and perhaps out of some respect for her mom. But I wish I could have just spent the afternoon with those journals, even if they weren’t exactly earth shattering, just so I could get to know the woman who was my husband’s grandmother.
I would just love to have a journal from my grandmother, even if it was nothing more than a daily task list. Would her task list look so different from mine, nearly a hundred years later? Would we have shared the same fears, the same hopes, the same dreams?
I don’t flatter myself that my journals are particularly exciting, well written, or interesting. But I know that some day, some grandchild or whatever will be glad that I wrote down my exasperation at the gas prices after Hurricane Katrina. My aunt lived through Pearl Harbor–how wonderful it could have been to read how she felt that day! These are the kinds of things I think about when I write.
Oh, and Spencer, I am notorious about reading my husband’s journal, and we joke about it. Hence, he only writes things he knows I won’t mind reading. Sometimes he even writes things in there that he can’t or won’t tell me, some feeling or regret or anger that he has towards me that it is easier to express in writing to me, and it actually furthers our communication. And re-reading those types of entries years later is always interesting.
Of course, he has full access to my journals as well, and always makes gagging noises when he gets to the parts about boys in highschool.
Comment by Heather O. — October 20, 2006 @ 5:22 pm
Oh Eve, your classes sound like mine! I try to get students to understand the potential in linking tangential thought to analytical methodology, so I justify the little off-topic jaunts in which we frequently engage. It’s all about cross-disclipinarianism, yuck yuck.
M&M, I wasn’t actually alluded to what I think is your kinda cool project of parsing down a record for easy reference (how BOM of you! :). Sorry it sounded that way–I was alluding instead to the way YW leaders used to tell us to be careful not to write in our journals when we felt cranky or faithless, b/c our future children wouldn’t be inspired. Even then I thought such a practice smacked of dishonesty.
Comment by Janet — October 20, 2006 @ 5:27 pm
Eve (re #31), I think you’re going after the wrong sister. (Even more evidence, I’m afraid, that you lack the Spirit of Elijah.) And to bring this back on topic, I’ll be sure to note this little incident in my journal, so that the angels can quote it one day.
Comment by Elijah — October 20, 2006 @ 5:54 pm
Janet, sadly, I can’t really blame my tangents on my students. I go on them even without any help from the peanut gallery. I have no doubt they love it.
Heather and Spencer raise the interesting issue of spousal access. It’s never really come up in my marriage, but I don’t feel any need to read my husband’s journal, and he doesn’t, evidently, feel any need to read mine. I’m a fairly private person, and I feel the need to keep my journal entirely to myself. As Spencer said, knowing I was writing for an audience would completely transform the whole enterprise, and undermine it. By the same token, I’d feel extremely intrusive asking to read someone else’s journal, even my husband’s. But we’re pretty honest with each other (to a fault at times); he never leaves me any doubt about where he is emotionally, and I certainly never leave him in any doubt about where I am, probably should a little more often, come to think of it….Maybe to I’m very used to the fact that there are parts of his life he can’t talk to me about because he’s a psychologist. None of that bothers me as long as I have a sense of where he is and what he’s feeling.
But everyone’s different. I actually really like what Heather said about a journal as a way to communicate with a spouse about things that are harder to speak aloud. It sounds like it works very well for them.
Comment by Eve — October 20, 2006 @ 5:58 pm
Dear [spirit of] Elijah, if you visit not one but two of my apostate sisters but refuse to call on me, is that my fault or yours? I will note in MY journal/memo to the angels that it was you that spurned me.
Rest assured, i WILL get the celestial PR drop on you. If it is the last thing I ever do.
Love and kisses,
Eve
Comment by Eve — October 20, 2006 @ 6:04 pm
Ooh, I too, have a collection of lovely little blank books from Borders and Barnes & Noble. Most with a few pages filled and then nothing.
This is why I think it matters: Even those few entries, give me a glimpse of who I was. The words cannot be erased and altered, unlike my memory of who I was. When I read even the seemingly mundane details of the weather, what I watched on tv I catch glimpses of what caught my eye that day. And then there’s the big events. I have journal entries for the day of the OKC bombling, 9/11, visiting my grandmother the week before she died… these are huge. I periodically re-read these dates. I see the pain and I see that I’ve grown and gotten through it.
Writing is cathartic. Even if you never go back and re-read it, it’s cathartic. It is a release. It turns your thoughts inward and you can push that outward through a pen, a typewriter, a pc. It helps. This is one of the reasons it is theraputic to write a letter to someone telling them how much you hate the bejeepers out of them for how awful they and then tearing it up (or mailing it if you are prepared to have those words known forever for once they are out, you can’t scoop ‘em back up).
So fear not that it isn’t a daily thing or as exciting as a pageturning novel. It’s your life and that’s enough for you.
Comment by cg — October 20, 2006 @ 7:11 pm
Janet,
Thanks for the clarification. Sad that you got that kind of lesson. I have found great help in writing at difficult times. I also appreciate knowing that other people have struggled, too, so I hope that if anyone ever reads my journal, they might find some comfort in that fact.
Comment by mullingandmusing (m&m) — October 20, 2006 @ 7:22 pm
What an inspiring bunch of folks you are! I am particularly grateful to Dan (#1) for sharing the extraordinary blog post with all the October 13ths. I read every one. I suppose I have been too all-or-nothing in my thinking to come up with the “one sentence a day” idea, and it was very helpful to see it in action.
I also appreciate the discussion about how journals of ordinary people have been helpful to you. I’ve mentioned before that having a larger-than-life ideal of my (deceased) mother has caused me to feel like a failure in comparison; perhaps if she had kept a journal of some sort, I would have had a better glimpse into the real woman.
And Eve (#13), thanks for the compliment, but I have a serious lack of time management skilz (as well as a lack of imagination) for such an undertaking. Janet, however, is a natural, and I’m adding my vote!
Just me (#21), I know what you mean about how a journal can be a facade–once the spewage of my high school years was over, I started to become less “real” in my journals (especially once I had kids), and you’ve got me thinking that perhaps this is part of my problem. Other posters (Eve, m&m, Lyndsey, Janet, Lynnette, cg) have said that their journals are for themselves and have got me thinking about a paradigm shift in my basic idea of what a journal is.
Heather O. (#32), I’m fascinated by Nate’s use of his journal as a way to communicate difficult things to you. When I taught writing, I had my students keep a kind of journal that we would write back and forth to each other in. Now I have a new idea to do this with my kids that can write (’course, they’ll probably think it’s just a new scheme to make them do more homeschooling or something). Thanks for that tidbit (as well as the rest of your comment).
cg, (#37), I like your comparison between events as they are recorded and a memory of the event. Certainly journals can be used to clarify memory and create a snapshot of your previous self, but I’m also mulling the idea of how we process truth (and “truth”) in our journey of becoming. I can see that journals can provide clarity and catharsis in the moment, but also serve a larger function in illuminating the development of self as contained in memory. Interesting.
I can see why people get such a kick out of blogging–it’s like casting your bread upon the waters and having it come back buttered.
Comment by Idahospud — October 20, 2006 @ 11:56 pm
I’ve pried into too many other people’s journals as an historian to EVER be willing to keep one of my own. Thank heavens for the rest of you, keeping future historians in business … heh, heh.
Comment by Ardis — October 21, 2006 @ 5:31 pm
Ok Ardis, now I’m all paranoid :). I do occasionally wonder what the actual writers of the autobiographies I’m looking at for my dissertation would make of what I’m doing to their prose. Hit me with something heavy, probably
Comment by Janet — October 21, 2006 @ 5:36 pm
I was not much of a journal writer until I starting pumping. Wow, that 15 minutes every three hours is a great way to get journal writing done.
That being said, maybe a journal that you just love the feel of the pages and a great pen is all you need (it works for me…I am simple). I use a Moleskine book. It’s not glue bound, stiched. Archival quality pages. I used Gelly Roll pens which are also archival and man, smooth. The pages are just waiting to be written on and the pen has never a skip.
They have many different types (lined, blank, graph) and sizes. Perhaps you need something you can take with you and then take a minute while waiting in a line….
Good luck!
Comment by Amy — October 22, 2006 @ 3:12 pm
My favorite journals are the teensy books I take with me when travelling. I write on the train or subway, in little bistros or hot dog stands, whatever. I like making little sketches (I can’t draw, but so what) and write down conversations I overheard and describe how people dress in Venice or whatever.
Comment by Janet — October 22, 2006 @ 6:46 pm
amy, how in the HECK are you pumping and journaling at the same time?! i bow down to thee!!!
Comment by just me — October 22, 2006 @ 7:20 pm
Can I dissent for a moment from the book-burning party?
Okay, biases upfront. Several months back, I wrote at T&S:
A bit cheesy, yes, but that’s my general bias.
On a specific level, I find it horrifying that the journals of a few thread participants (ahem, ZDs) might be burned. There are few groups today that are more interesting, I think, than Mormon feminists. In forty years historians are going to be eagerly discussing — well, whatever it is that happens with women and the church in the next forty years — and the journals of today’s Mormon feminists are going to be invaluable in letting future generations know how Mormon women lived. So don’t do it for your righteous journal reading posterity, do it for feminism everywhere.
(How’s that for neatly substituting one guilt trip for another?
).
But seriously — at times earlier in my life, the “bearing testimony through journal” model appealed to me, and I kept that kind of journal. My journal now is much more personal, more for me. But I also read Mormon sources, and I see how much journals can mean, not just for the bearing-testimony idea but as a source in understanding Mormonism, understanding life, understanding how others lived, and so on.
Comment by Kaimi — October 22, 2006 @ 9:47 pm
Kaimi, thanks for a radically different perspective I admit I hadn’t really considered. I have a vexed relationship with loss. Sometimes I riven by embarrassing nostalgia for the past, haunted by the irreperable losses of human life. Other times loss seems like liberation. I go through my house and get rid of everything I’ve been hanging onto. I shred all the half-started writing that I feel dissatisfied with. (But somehow I’ve never been able to get rid of any of my journals, even the grade-school trivia and the junior-high agonizing and the passages and volumes I’d just die if anyone else read. I know better than to read them myself, even, and I can’t imagine when I’ll ever read them again–but it would feel wrong to get rid of them.)
I have to admit that there are probably many other journals I could lap up with alacrity. But Ardis’s point is a good one. The thing is, I like information assymmetry. I want to be a fly on the wall. I want to know without being known.
It’s so hard to know what I’ll feel about the whole thing after I’m dead. If I were detached enough from and accepting enough of my own most humiliating and vulnerable moments–maybe it really wouldn’t matter. Maybe life would look like a strange and distant kindergarten and hey, if the people still in it wanted to follow my trail of goldfish crumbs around the easels and the playground, why not? Now it’s hard to imagine acheiving such a Zenlike state of detached acceptance.
There was an article in the New Yorker, I think, awhile ago about literary works and letters that start with “Consign this to the flames.” And the addressee, of course, didn’t. If it weren’t for such disobedience we wouldn’t have the Aeneid. That does give one pause.
Idahospud, loved this line–
I can see why people get such a kick out of blogging–it’s like casting your bread upon the waters and having it come back buttered.
Comment by Eve — October 22, 2006 @ 10:17 pm
Thinking about this more, I really like M&M’s solution to Kaimi’s dilemma. The answer is to write two journals, one for me, one for everyone else. The only problem is that I’m not doing very well at writing the first one. Let alone a second
Comment by Eve — October 22, 2006 @ 10:20 pm
I don’t know, Kaimi; given its frequent lack of interest in the external events of my life, I think my journal would perhaps be more of value to future historians studying the thought processes of highly neurotic people than to those interested in Mormonism or feminism.
Comment by Lynnette — October 23, 2006 @ 1:07 am
The inner circle of hell is reserved for traitors and those who read others’ journals uninvited. For many years of my (adolescent) life I would have loved to keep a journal, but didn’t only out of fear someone would find it and read it.
(In Rosellen Brown’s novel Civil Wars you see a picture of a family told entirely from the perspective of the mother, except that the fourteen-year-old niece’s/adopted daughter’s journal entries are inserted in appropriate places throughout the book, to fascinating effect. You can see that the daughter’s communicating to her journal things she can’t communicate out loud to anyone and yet desperately needs to.)
I long ago destroyed all my journals and vowed never to create more. When it comes down to it, I’d just rather make things up than attempt to capture in language my life as I experience it. A fiction journal I can understand–that is, keeping sketches of made-up events, entirely for my own private personal pleasure. In one sense, all journals are “false.” My method is just significantly more false than other people’s.
Maybe I’ll throw my descendants a bone and write a long-winded life story about how I was raised by centaurs, who rescued and brought up foundling humans to harvest their tears for use in their potions. (Oh yeah, I’m not going to have any descendants, because for that to happen you first have to have children! Scratch that.)
Comment by Kiskilili — October 23, 2006 @ 11:46 am
I love my journal. In my journal I record many things, not to fulfill a compulsion, but to clarify and evaluate the events of the previous day; the heart of the daily journal entry as it relates to Step 10, however, is the daily self-inventory. I do this regularly. The theme is that we must watch our actions, words, thoughts, feelings and beliefs. This is pretty high-powered stuff when one considers the clientele. I’ve spent a few weeks on Step Ten. I think it will take “patience and honesty” (I think those are the words of the 12-Step manuel) to carry this off. I’m not ashamed of the things I’ve written in my journal (since 1968–about 40 volumes) because they are attempts to be honest. And the journal has helped me a great deal. My daughter, for instance, got to read my thoughts about her when she was born. She had nbo idea I’d been keeping track of her, admiring her, for all these years. I think that the personal inventory has done a great to help me progress spiritually. It seems to help me remember throughout the day who I am. It has taught me discipline and, above all, accountability. BYUI
Comment by BYUI Teacher (Not religion) — November 10, 2006 @ 1:23 pm
Idahospud,
#39,
sorry I haven’t looked at this thread in a while, but I just noticed your comment. I’m glad you like the idea. I’ve shared it previously with others, some of whom considered me very strange.
Oh, and just a clarification, it was August 13, not October 13.
Comment by Dan — November 10, 2006 @ 4:59 pm
About half way through college a romance went south. As I had written ad nauseum about my celestial one and only for months I burned those journals specifically to avoid the humiliation of my progeny ever reading them. As they went through the crises of high school and college I wished that each of them might have been able to read them and laugh at my humiliation and gain some perspective. I write my journals for myself now. I do tear out a page or two every now and again where I was just so scathing I can’t stand it. What is repentance, if not editing? If and when my children read them they will laugh at me and, I hope, at themselves. Life can be pretty funny. My husband has diligently kept a daily journal of the weather and the facts, so I don’t have to. Same weather, same facts. I figure it’s my duty to provide the counterbalance that shows the passion. He is hilarious, and his journal is mostly boring. Most consider me much less interesting, but on the rare occasions when I read from my journals, listeners laugh so hard they cry.
Karen
Comment by Karen — November 10, 2006 @ 6:52 pm