Do you Journal? Why?

i'm not a big fan of 'shoulds', we each have to make our own lives and while there are laws and conventions to keep us from anarchy...private behaviors are just that: Private, no-ones business.

Personally, i'm a journaler, but then i've had a compulsion to write since my teens and i'm 62 now. My journals have helped me sort out my feeling when things were tumultuous in my life. So often the first emotion we identify is not what's really going on: Anger is often a mask for fear, 'hurt' is often a mask for anger/fear. My journals have, i think, kept me more honest...i peruse them and realize that what i often remember is not the 'whole story', the details are there in my own handwriting. And i use journals as a 'commonbook' a place to play with ideas for poems and essays.

A blog is journal of sorts. Read your old ones, see if you gain any insight or inspiration from them...that should answer your question about if you, personally, 'should' keep a journal.

I can see how a writer would keep a journal. Inner thoughts that are intense and create conflict make for good reading. These thoughts can make good story lines. I agree, blogs are journals, but mine omit a lot of thoughts that can be controversial, fantasies or inappropriate. These thoughts can be fodder for a work of fiction.

Yes, I journal! I have for years. Most people don't really understand why I do. My mom said I was writing love letters to myself. Many people have accepted that I carry my notebook around and write in it frequently whether they understand it or not. I have about 40 good sized notebooks filled now.

But why? It is a therapy, for sure. When things are happening that I don't understand, I write about it. I can start writing about my confusion, or blues, or happy times, or whatever, and feel better by the time I finish writing. I can encourage myself in my writing. Sometimes I surprise myself as to how I really feel about things as I start writing. Sometimes I discover insights that I didn't realize that I had, --that come out in my journal.

And, it helps me hold on to memories that I don't want to lose. Reading my old journals brings back to me memories that I had completely forgotten. Or, I find that I remembered, but remembered it differently than it really happened. However, since there are so many notebooks, so many years, and they aren't indexed, nor can I ever do that, I can't say, for instance, that I will find in my journals the date that we installed the new windows. Some day I could find that, but it would take a long time, unless I had a good idea of which year to read.

I expect my own family to read my journals some day. I'm ready to let them start reading past journals when they are ready. Up till now, though, my journals have been off limits to them and they have respected that. When I write, I try to be fair and just. If there's a difference of opinion, I try to express it in kindness, knowing that some day it will be read by someone. I try to see problems from both sides and give people the benefit of the doubt. I've learned that I can't judge motives. I don't know why a person does a thing. They might have a good motive for doing something that I don't understand or don't like.

By rereading my journals, I've often encouraged myself as I see that hard places that God has brought me through and though it's been tough some times, I wasn't abandoned. He'll bring me through whatever I'm going through that's tough now. There seems to be a lot of tough things to go through.

Good question. I've enjoyed thinking about it.

Nancy