For the last few days I have been getting comfy in my "writing room" and re-reading my huge stack of journals. Opening up one of the journals that I began filling when I was a teenager is always a risky venture. I often get distracted from whatever I was looking for in the first place.
Sometimes I will go to my journals when I want to know what year we took the boys to Disneyland or exactly what date we moved into this house. But then I get caught up in reading stuff I do not recall and I forget why I started the hunt in the first place!
But this week I have a distinct and focused purpose for my step into the past. I have a green marker and a black ink pen and a yellow tablet at my side as I open the next journal. I am methodically going through them day by day and marking important personal moments that I may use in a book that I would love to write. I make a green dot next to the journal entry and also record the date and main theme on the yellow tablet.
It is a weird sensation to spend multiple hours immersed in your own history and then come back to the present. I come out of the room with a dazed and far away look in my eyes and Hubs asks if I'm okay. I say that I am so happy to be in the here and now and done with the "good ole days". I miss some of the cute kid days but would never choose to go back in time and I figure that I still have some cute kid stuff in front of me when I become a Grandma someday!
I am so glad that I am a natural journal-keeper. It was never a chore for me. I looked forward to my stolen moments to sit and record my thoughts about my life. Some entries are one paragraph but most are a page or two. I realized that my boys would not always be little boys and I knew that their funny comments and goofy mischief would not last forever. My own inner questions and beliefs grew and changed as I lived my life and I have never stopped filling journals and probably never will.
Tomorrow I will dive into my past once again and who knows what treasures I will find.
Having those journals are priceless. So awesome that you kept them. Your kids will love them when you are gone.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes, indeed. Not scribbles but treasures; treasures which have filled your life.
ReplyDeleteHappy treasure hunting!
Yes indeed--taking back some of those fun and cute childhood times would be nice. But a huge NO to the teen years for me!
ReplyDeleteWhat a treasure you have in your journals. I wish I had the same discipline. I have a few half empty journals laying around. It must be wonderful to look back and see what God has done in your life.
ReplyDeleteThose journals would help you remember your life. I wish I had kept them since I seem to forget those wonderful days....
ReplyDeleteJust found your blog today, and I had to comment on this post. I just find it so amazing when someone says they have all these journals that they have written. I'm so sorry that I did not do that. I was always deep into my thoughts and emotions, but never wrote them down in a systematic way. It's only been lately that I discovered the book, "To Be Told", by Dan Allender, which has inspired me tremendously to start writing my "stories." Do I see a book in your future????
ReplyDeleteHi Cora and Welcome!! Yes there is a book in my future and I am forcing all my blog friends to listen to my whining as I figure out how to make it happen!
ReplyDelete