Journaling - Reflecting

 

I would think that a lot of you have kept journals from when you were probably eight years old, you still have them, you still journal and you probably have many of them. I started my journaling at a confused part of my life and that was back in 1970s. I worked, had five kids .  Still, Iwrote in journals.  Mostly when I was sad, angry, depressed, confused.   Then  about 10 years passed of writing, I decided those  journals  I would burn. . I did not want to leave them for someone else to pick up after I was gone to read because they were really very personal journals. But then things seem to get  better in the 80's. I once again started to write in journals.

 

Just the other day, after Christmas, my husband and I were having our afternoon glass of wine and I remembered those journals I had put away in a box in the basement.   It was a dreary kind of day not much to do so I asked my husband if he would get that box of journals for  me to read .  He did, and I began to read from them to him. I read things that we both laughed at, some made me cry, some made me skip a page.

We traveled a lot in an RV full-timing it, which I really loved.   After 3 yrs. of it or more, I realized I needed a home base. So these journals began with our trips from 2000 untiluntil 2006, when we settle down in a new home in Tennessee. My favorite place to live. The journals that I read to him  have my impressions about people that I've met. My family!  Some were critical of people, and  as the years went by those same people I wrote about completely change my feelings about them.  As I read it to my husband, he said "you changed your mind over the years havent you?maybe you should burn that book too". I decided I  would just rip out those pages that may be hurtful to whoever reads my journals after I am gone.  For my observations about them were wrong.

I read out loud to him about our travels to see if he remembered how much fun we had and some of the other RV people that we met from all over the north,  east, south and some parts of the Northwest. He  would love to go full timing again but that's not for me I love my home.  Some  might say home is where the heart is, it  doesn't matter where you reside be it a building, a house, or an an RV.  Been there, done that so making a house a home is for me!

I started a new journal in  2006. Didn't write every single day.  I am really using my iPad and dictating then printing it and putting it in my journal. I guess I got a little lazy with the handwriting and I do love to write by hand but it's so much quicker to do it this way. Still writing feelings mostly.

So my point is, do you ever look at your journals past. Have you changed your mind about things that you said in your journal? Did you write in it when you were sad or just happy?  Did you write about your travels?  I only wish I started journals when I ws a teenager or younger.  How interesting it would be to see how I lived during the years between 1945 and 2014, how I felt. .  I just remember glimpses of how it was back then .  Journaling gives you kind of a time capsule.