Do you keep a journal? I have a few different journals. I'm pretty sporadic with my journaling. I think this is because of my Internet writing. I don't take pen to paper nearly as often as I would otherwise. I use to be pretty faithful keeping dream journals, journaling the details of my wild and crazy lucid dreaming escapades. My dreams are usually more exciting than my awake life. I also keep a a memory journal in which I jot down memories. This is a fun way to record family history. Sadly, the day-to-day scribblings detailing my daily doings and feelings I've not kept up with. Sometimes I wish I had, but maybe it isn't all that important. Today, a reader (Desiree) posted this message as a share post:
I have written journals for the 30 years or so that I have lived in my present location. After an illness one of my projects has been to let go of these journals as they represent how I was feeling in that moment rather than feelings that I want to hang on to - so I chose to get rid of the journals. I'm still asking myself if I am doing the right thing.
Desiree was responding to me asking readers how clutter affects emotional well being. But she could have just as easily posted under journal writing tips.
I have never gotten rid of any of my journals, but I do have an older journal I kept over thirty years ago that I would be mortified if anyone else read. Ramblings from my somewhat struggling twenty-something years. It is under lock and key, maybe I should get rid of it. FrankenGirl's grandmother told her that diaries are meant to be burnt. What say you??
Diary photo: C Squared Studios / Getty Images
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I don’t keep journals, I wish I had. So many things I don’t remember, lol. I would say keep them as I had a friend who died two years ago leaving her partner to look after their daughter who was only 3 months old. She always kept a journal and her partner was thinking of getting rid of them, but he was persuaded to keep them as their daughter would learn more about her mother through them.
In the old days folks kept letters that family and friends wrote that were very personal – but today we don’t write letters so the only thing to show what “our” times were like are our journals.
My boss is reading a book about a woman who was traveling with her husband back in 1928 via cover wagon and horse. The story is her letters! I asked him gee I wonder if anyone will think what we have written is as interesting as we think what she wrote on what her life was like is.
(:
I think they should be tossed as they can do so much damage after the fact. I have a friend whose mom passed away and 6 months later she started reading her mom’s journal of unhappiness and it has caused her more suffering than needed. Things I write are written in the moment ad gone.. yet someone could read them and hold on to what might have been said for ever..
Interpretations of a life by the reader of another writer’s journal are the province of the reader I would think. Maybe such a reader would ask what were the reasons the writer created their journal? To create a history of their thoughts, maybe, experiences, explore their own mind their philosophy of life to that point in their lives or maybe just for a form of personal therapy. For myself, I like to share with other people’s thought systems especially on how they viewed their lives in context with a common understanding that helps me to compare and improve my own journal, my own thinking day by day. As to destroying my journals, I have no answer. For the present time I like to think I will have an opportunity to read across the paths of my thoughts, maybe to see where I have been, and figure out where I’ve yet to go.