If my journal could talk, it would probably tell me to quit whining and get a life already
By Heather O.
Followed, quite possibly, by a smack upside my head. Or a swift kick in the heinie. Both of them are warranted.
Last week, at the behest of an old friend for some photos, I went through a box of high school stuff that has been sitting in my parents’ basement since, well, high school. I was amazed at what I found, at what I had saved, and wondering how I knew I would want these things later. I found pictures of old friends from elementary school that made me stare, letters to old friends that made me crack up, and love letters from an old boyfriend that made me blush. And, of course, there were my journals.
I picked up one journal that spanned the summer of 1993 to the summer of 1995. Two tumultuous years of my young adulthood, fraught with all of the expected angst of a person who is desperately trying to figure life out, to make good decisions, and navigate relationships. And as I sat up well into the night, reading about these two years and all my forgotten drama, I just wanted to shout, “Enough already! All this whining is giving me a headache!”
And it was whiny. Wow was it whiny. But apparently I knew it as whiny, and I defended it, saying that I only write when I feel whiny, because then the writing helps get the whiny out of my system, and that my life isn’t really as messed up as it seems in my journal, but I just write when I’m stressed and feel out of control, and that tends to happen when I was dating somebody, so really, my old journals sound like I’m schizophrenic and obsessed with boys.
Which, I suppose describes most teenagers. But, I digress….
Like I said, I stayed up late into the night reading that journal. I was fascinated. It was amazing the things I had forgotten, things I’m sure at the time I thought I would remember forever. There were names of people I didn’t remember, couldn’t recall, people who had entered my life, influenced it, and then left. There were events I recorded that I couldn’t remember participating in, conversations I don’t remember having. My favorite, though, were my descriptions of relationships, and the transparencies obvious to me now that were much too opaque to me then.
Let’s just say if I had seen the movie, “He’s just not that into you”, that would have explained a lot.
Anyway, I’m wondering if other people keep journals like this, and if they mean something to you after the fact. After my husband’s grandmother died, I had a chance to peruse some of her journals, and it was, again, fascinating to see glimpses of a woman I hardly knew. I found myself wishing she had written more, just so I could see her life better.
However, reading it felt a little strange. Intimate, like I was violating some part of her privacy, even though she was no longer on the earth. I suppose all journals feel like that.
So tell me, do you keep a journal? Why, or why not? I know there is a lot of guilt associated with not keeping a journal–is it because a prophet told us to, and if we don’t do what the prophet tells us to do, we feel guilty? Is journaling something that is hard for you to do, or something that is easy, natural, and, if you’re like me, necessary for your sanity? Do you journal regularly, or sporadically, when the urge strikes?
If you do keep a journal, what kinds of things do you write about? I know one friend who described the weather at the top of every entry in his journal. I couldn’t ever figure out why he did that, especially since he lived in Boston at the time. Seems to me there would be only one thing to report:
Weather=cold.
Call me crazy, but I find schizophrenic relationships much more entertaining.
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April 14th, 2009 at 10:18 am
[...] C’mon, I know you have them. I want to hear about all the dirt you ladies write in your journals. Come share over at The Red Brick Store . [...]
April 14th, 2009 at 10:27 am
My journals should be burned at my death. They too are filled with page after page of whining depression. It’s not that I was constantly sad or anything. I just only wrote in my journal when I was really sad and needed to vent. If you read my journals you think I was some seriously depressed messed up chick!
April 14th, 2009 at 10:40 am
I dutifully kept a journal throughout high school, and it was also mostly filled with really boring descriptions of my classes, with occasional bursts of whining about how nerdy I was. A few years ago I started keeping a journal again to write about things that were just to personal for my blog. At the time my husband and I were going through a difficult time and I put a lot of things in there that I was feeling at the time. I’m not sure what to do with it now or if I would ever want anyone else to read it. My private journal keeping is really valuable to me, but I’m not sure it’s best for others to read. Part of why I have a blog is so that I have a personal history that is a bit more public and created with an audience in mind. I’ve found that record keeping is really important–I love remembering things that happened and I’d forgotten about. And I also like to have a journal as a place to process my feelings. As far as the future is concerned, I’m not sure what I want to have–maybe a combination of the both.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:56 am
.
Even the warts are of worth to our grandchildren.
Never burn a journal.
(Locking it up in a secret safe-deposit box until you’re dead is okay.)
April 14th, 2009 at 11:12 am
I had a similar experience with an old journal a few years ago. Journal keeping has never been my forte, but I couldn’t believe my own eyes when I saw how positively whiney I had been in my old journal entries. Blech! It made me never want to write in a journal again. A few weeks later, I read an Ensign article about a woman who had decided to keep a spiritual journal that detailed some sort of spritual ezperience or gratitude each day. I thought this was a great idea and I promptly began to journal in that way. I am still very bad at consistency, but the entries that I do have are inspiring and a good reminder to me.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:13 am
In total I think I have about 12 journals that are full. They’re somewhat out of order as i’ve written sometimes in 2 at once or my first journal that I started when I was 8 and later finished in college, while writing in other journals in between. I love keeping a journal and although I don’t write as much now as I should I still treasure journaling. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I sorta like reading about my boy-obsessed, lame and dramatic teen-age and (sadly) college aged self. Yeah it was whiney, but at the time those were the issues pressing on me and they were serious. I think it’s great to see a progression of self. I have to say I’m surprised that you kept those journals at your parents house–no matter where I’ve lived my journals have always travelled with me.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:15 am
My mother asked that each of her children write a some of their favorite memories of her, so I’ve been going through my journal from my sophomore year of college (about the only year in my life where I regularly kept a journal, thanks to a D&C class discussion on the importance of record-keeping) to help me out.
OMGollyGosh, did I need Prozac! Thinking back, it was an insanely stressful year–much more so than later semesters, strangely enough–but I really wasn’t dealing well most days.
But I really find myself wishing that I’d kept a journal when I was younger, when I still lived at home. My memory for life events really isn’t that great, and there are important things out there I should try to remember! I’ve still never written about how I felt when I got engaged, married, graduated from college, etc. These are significant life events that my children would probably appreciate!
The last six months I’ve been able to keep a journal pretty well, but I found that it takes a significant amount of time in the evening (when I wanted to sleep) to write each day, so I’ve started writing during my lunch break at work. I manage to write probably 4 days every week. I REALLY hope I’ll be able to keep it up once my husband graduates and I stop working full-time.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:43 am
I’ve been a journal writer since I was 8 years old. It comes really naturally to me. I just like to record things so I can remember. My early journals (I have at least 10, but now I journal online and have copies sent to me from ldsjournal.com) were pretty boring because they seemed like more of a travel log than me writing my feelings. I like to go back and read them anyway, searching for the good entries. I am bummed that I didn’t keep a journal during college or my senior year of high school or before I had kids. Now I cut and paste my blog entries into my journal and add more personal ones as I feel like it. A lot of times my entries are about my children and how they are growing and what new things they are doing. I write at least once a week. When I go back and read my journals, my favorite entries are spiritual, deep thinking ones as opposed to what events went on every day. I like how blogging has changed my journal and given it a more interesting spin! I’m sure that my posterity won’t wish that I wrote more! I write too much sometimes.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
I still have all my journals from growing up, and I won’t throw them away, but I won’t read them either! I don’t want to read them. Maybe some day I will.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I kept a journal quite regularly in high school, but I tried to write every day, and it was mostly just boring. My college journals are much more interesting (though appropriately whiny, angst-riddled and boy-crazy). I kind of enjoy remembering what I was thinking and feeling during those years, and I’m sure I’ll never get rid of them. Since I got engaged and married I haven’t kept much of a journal at all, which will probably make my kids sad some day, but doesn’t bother me much. I tell my husband it’s because now I don’t have to write it down — I just whine to him. I’m not sure he always appreciates that, but oh well. And I suppose my kids can always go back and read my blog entries.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Migs-
I guess it is suprising that I have journals in storage. I guess I just brought my current journal with me to college, not wanting to lug the rest of them around (I’ve been keeping a journal regularly since I was 8). This time, I did bring the journal I was reading home, but left about 4 still at my parents. Over time, I’m sure I’ll get them all here. I just didn’t have the space in my luggage this time. And somehow I don’t think anybody is digging through my stuff looking for them
Heather O.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
I have not yet brought myself to read my journals. I know they’ll give me a headache. And, since I’m like this, make me mad all over again. Instead, they sit in a storage bucket, full of my life before marriage. I really want to burn them, but can’t bring myself to.
I wish I kept a journal now. I have a few blogs, mostly personal, that I write in. There’s a couple so I don’t annoy the same people with everything over and over. I can spread the whine. But I mostly only write/blog when I’m cranky or annoyed or super excited about something. The everyday things? Those will be forgotten. Sad.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I write an email to our families each week detailing what our family was up to that week. Then I copy it into a word document for a journal of what we’ve been up to. I also take the parts that are about my kids and put them into a word document for each of them so that from the day they are born they have a record of how they were growing, progressing, and what they were doing each week. I love doing it this way because I am chronicling our life each week. The downside is that I rarely write about my feelings, struggles, and worries because it does go out to the entire family. Sometimes I take a minute and add that stuff once I’ve copied it over to my journal, but I don’t do it as much as I should. I think it’ll be cool for my kids to have once they’re old enough to appreciate it, though.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I have kept a journal off and on for years. My handwriting is pretty bad so I don’t know if anyone could decipher it, but I’m not sure I would want anyone reading the teenage years–oh the drama–and definitely not some of the problems my husband and I have had. And personally, I don’t really want to reread about the 10 years of infertility. I pretty much only write when I’m upset, so it’s not exactly a happy thing to revisit.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
When I was very young I would write what I did that day in each of my classes and what I had for lunch…. boy have cafeteria lunches changed.
I also started signing my signature along the way and watched how it changed. Now you can barely read it. I think I started doing this after doing some family history research and just being facinated with even seeing what they’re signature looked like.
I have an entry where I can prove to my husband that I knew were were going to get married long before he really knew it.
I have also written about painful things – though I will say that I often keep the reasons to generalities…
There have even been nights where all I could do was write… “I’m sorry.. I’m just too tired tonight to write. See you tomorrow night. “
Journals I guess to me reveal things about us as well as the times we live in. I would love to read a journal by one of my grandparents as they went through the Great Depression.
April 14th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I’ve almost always used my journal as a place to vent about my problems, so when I go back and read them, there are things in there that I never would have considered keeping a record of now. There are also things I wrote about that my husband did that while they may seem whiney, actually help me to see how far we’ve come, how much we’ve grown up and changed. There are things he did early in the marriage that I am SURE he’d never pull now!lol It almost seems impossible that he would have actually done the thing I described….which I see as a good thing mostly. I like to use a journal program online(www.ldsjournal.com) because it’s password protected!LOL I have big plans for printing out those pages someday for my kids. But not yet. I’ve also wanted to do a journal as Pres Eyring suggested, where you write about how you see the hand of the Lord working in your life, but as of yet, I have only tagged the entries with “hand of the Lord” instead of devoting an entire journal to just that topic.
April 14th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
I’d forgotten about Elder Eyring’s talk about recognizing the Hand of the Lord in your journal. Thanks for the reminder!
April 15th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Oh, my. I just read my high school and college journals a couple of months ago. Can you say Bad Teenage Romance Journals? My high school journals had one (ONE) entry that didn’t involve a boy somehow. And I tried really hard to use a clever, intelligent writing style, which just ended up being cringe-worthy. But I can’t throw them out. They remind me that people change, and they may help me get through my daughters’ teen years. But I think they need to be locked away so no one else ever gets to read them. And I will admit, once the high school years were over, there were many “Hand of the Lord” moments, some really interesting experiences that I had forgotten. So yes, I’m a journal fan. Even if they make me want to put my head under my pillow.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
It makes my skin crawl to go back and read my journals! I wonder why my husband married that insecure, silly girl; but I’m glad he did. Now that so many years have gone by it is good to have something to refresh my memory about many things. I found a long lost friend on facebook and had to go back to my journals to remember where the friendship left off- I had mis-remembered a sour parting.
Now my blog is mostly my journal. The exceptions are the intensely personal things- issues from my marriage and the spiritual/sacred.
Journals are definately a long term project and probably better understood when read in retrospect by the person who didn’t write them. Otherwise, we are too hard on ourselves.
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