The Journal Continues

I have something that very few people have.  Journals of my life starting from when I was quite young. Here is most of them, and they are all full from cover to cover.  I was never a person to write in my journal every day, but when I felt like I needed to vent, or record something that I thought was significant I pulled it out.  Here are some things that I've learned from looking back and reading them:

1.  God is good, and has guided my life from the very beginning.

2.  Mike who I thought I was going to love forever and ever and had the hugest crush on in grade 8, well, whoever you are, I can't remember what you looked like, or what your last name was.

3.  Life is made up of seasons.  The journal from grade 12 was extremely sad.  After reading it a couple of years ago, I almost burned it.  There are equally joyous seasons, like when I started my barber shop and met my soul mate.

4.  As time goes on we forget the details.  When we live in the here and now and we think we will remember everything.  We don't.

5.  Savouring the moment and living in the moment is hard to do.  Children do it automatically.  I lost that ability somewhere around the year I graduated from Marvel.

6. Reading old journals helps to understand why you make decisions  the way you do today.

7.  A good journal is one that will open flat when opened to the middle.  People have given me some beautiful journals over the years, but if you have to wrestle with making the pages lay flat, it's no good.

Here is my first journal, and my first entry.  December 24, 1984.  It was the night before Christmas, and I was nine.  My spelling was horrid, but I could write ledgibly.

Pinterest....yes, you know the place...where ideas abound.  It's the place where you swear off of chocolate and have your next 400 crafts all planned.  Well yes, that's where I found the following idea.  It's a way to journal daily.  Every day you write your piece, and then next year, you change ink colours and write a few more lines.  The cool thing really happens in the following years as you can look back and see exactly what you did the previous years.  I'm trying to stick with 4 lines max so that I can use it for 4 or five years.  I stamped the corner of each card with the date.  I also gave one of these to my friends daughter.  When I see children journalling, I always encourage them to keep doing it.

An overly sentimental person I am not.  I have three boxes like the one in the photo below that hold my worldly goods that have some type of memory value.  The pencil case in my hand is falling apart.  It's old.  I've had it since I was about 3.  I also have some childhood books, and photos in there, and it appears that I still have my wooden recorder.

{peace}