DAY 81 - JOURNALING, it's the write stuff

A few of my actual journals, from this year alone.

If you're reading my blog, then you know I like to write. It’s a habit I started when I was very young. I started journaling back in elementary school, and for most of my life I have been a very avid journaler.

   When I was about age 12, I wrote my journal to my brother Mike – even though I never knew him. Writing my journal as if letters to him, helped me feel closer to him – and help me feel a little bit less alone.

   And I do think that is part of why I have always written in my journal – because I grew up kindof like an only child. Even though my parents had three children, none of us grew up together. From the age of 5, I was the only child at home (Fran had left for college) – and as a latch-key kid on those days that my mom worked, well – I had a lot of time alone. Although I read a ton, and had a lot of friends to play with, there was still a lot of time alone. So I wrote – a lot.

   I am quite certain that part of my writing/journaling I get from my father also. You would never have caught Dad without a pen and paper on him. He used to take a piece of paper and folded a special way – and each section meant something to him in his Newspaper Head: the Who, What, When, Where, Why, How of it all. Even though I don't have to fold paper in a special way, you also rarely find me without pen and paper on me. It's how I spend my free time. And there is a “security blanket” comfort that comes with having pen and paper always at hand.

   Certainly it's easier to tote a journal around being a girl – because I can always stick it in my purse. I always have a journal in my purse. Even with all of the traveling I have done this past year, and my dutiful effort to travel light as a road warrior – I still always had a journal and four or five pens on me. Always. Better than American Express – I just can't leave home without it.

   For me, journaling has become increasingly easier over the years – ever since Al Gore invented the Internet. (Ha ha.) With always having a computer at work, and now a SmartPhone on me – “virtual pen and paper” are always at hand, and I can print them off later at home. That way anywhere I am, as long as I have Internet access, I can write in my journal. Heck, I would write on parchment, banana leaves, even bubblegum wrappers if that's what it took. Putting pen to paper is just as much a part of me as breathing.

My shelf our journals, now over 6-feet long.

   Most of my journal is just me talking things out – kindof like talking to myself. It's how I think things through and work things out. So obviously, I have done a lot of journaling this past year. And through the past 49 years there have been some really tough times in my life, and I have written excessively during those times. It seems the older I get the more I write. When I was younger I probably averaged about a page a week. Nowadays I fill a 3-inch binder every single year. Sometimes even more than that.

   I think part of the reason is that Spencer W. Kimball was the Prophet when I was growing up, and he too was an avid journaler. He was always counseling the youth to keep a journal. And I distinctly remember a picture of him in his Prophet Office, with a shelf filled with hard bound journals behind him – very proudly displayed. That made a huge impression on me, and after I bought my first house – I got a bookshelf and put my journals on one of the shelves. And over the years that shelf has gotten fuller and fuller. In my current Den, I have a fabulous IKEA bookshelf – with 6-foot long shelves. This last year I not only finished that 6-feet of shelving with my journals, but it now overflows onto the shelf below. And I am nowhere close to slowing down – and never stopping.

From my earlier journal entry,
1979, I was 14-years-old.

   But it's not like I want anyone to read my journal or anything. Heaven forbid! In fact, I should add a line to my Will that states that my journals get buried with me. Except that I would need a bigger burial plot – much bigger.

   I write because I have to. Writing in my journal – heck, writing at all is as much a part of me as the hair on my head or the blood in my veins. It is just something that I have to do. And somehow, even with all of the time that I do find to write – it is still never enough time to get it all captured.

   Blogging and journaling or two very different things to me. My journals are very private, incredibly intimate. The deepest thoughts and darkest secrets of my heart. And the pieces of the lives of others that they have shared with me and the lessons I learned from them – both good and bad.

   Blogging, on the other hand, that's very public – and that is what it is intended for. But my journal, is as private and secret as it comes. It is my most intimate and private thoughts. It’s the stuff that I can’t share with another human soul – not with the men I married, not with a best girlfriend, sometimes I struggle to even put it onto paper to share it with myself.

   But there are things that shouldn’t be bottled up – things that tear you down and leave you feeling hollow. After my divorce, I journaled to figure out how to build my new future, I journaled to figure out what had happened, and to gain much needed perspective on why I was treated so cruelly when I had been nothing but loving and supportive. And as I put it all onto paper, as the pieces of the puzzle that is my life flowed from the pen, I gained tremendous insight.

   Personally, I am blessed with tremendous inspiration and very clear personal revelation when I am writing in my journal. Thoughts and understanding come to me through journaling that I simply cannot receive any other way.

   So grab a notebook and a pen, and sneak off to a corner somewhere. Heck, I’ll even share my Writing Corner with you.