If journaling is “not your thing” or you have just never taken up the habit, read this. Maybe you will.
My mother kept a Five Year Journal early in her life. You know the type, providing lines to fill out about the same calendar day over five years. Her journal is tiny, and there is only room for about 15-20 words in the minuscule space to capture personal and memorable events, daily feelings, and thoughts. My mother’s days were filled with lots of back and forth to church, getting “permanents,” which basketball game she was going to, and with which boy. She was 12 years old on January 2, 1958, when she started her journal.
January 3, 1958
Today I sat with Wayne Marks in a movie at school. The movie was really good. Especially good sitting beside of him.
August 5, 1958
Today is mama’s birthday. Tonight Boyce and I went to church. Then to the Tasty Freeze. My first time to go to church with a boy.
January 3, 1959
Tonight I dated Sonny in his ’59 Oldsmobile. We went to the drive-in. Jerry is mad with me.
February 9, 1959
Today I went to ball-practice. Sonny called me. Judy rolled my hair.
March 19, 1960
Tonight I dated Larry Kendall. We went to his church, then rode around. Came home early and sat on the porch. I got his ring.
August 6, 1960
Today Bobby got me from work at 6pm and we went to Sunday school at Mt. Beulah. (Bobby asked me to marry him tonight)
By 1962, at the ripe age of 16 and freshly graduated from high school, she was married to Bobby. I could read the scribble from her tiny book over and over again. Her handwriting changes over the years, her language is of the era, and her dating life is exactly how it is depicted in the movies, capturing the innocence of the 1950s in rural America. I can hear her voice as I read the words and even hear whispers of her essence in the lines of her emerging teenage self. She changed, of course, and I knew her as an adult - and as my mother - but the person I knew is in the stories of church, getting her hair done, sitting on porches, visiting family, and a preoccupation with romance. There is endless riding around in cars because almost 70 years ago in the countryside of North Carolina, what else do you do? The mundane details of her life read like a novel. We don’t often remember the mundane, but life is mainly filled with it, and miraculously, journaling transforms the details into a story. If this peek into my mother’s Five Year Journal doesn’t encourage you to jot down a few sentences daily, maybe the next story will.
Just this month, I tasked myself with one last look at an ancient laptop in search of a few guest blog posts I wrote in 2020 which I thought I may have lost forever. I found the blog posts and an entire treasure trove of journal entries, poems, and other writings I had forgotten I had ever written. It was like winning the lottery. My heart was beating quickly, and I felt a dopamine hit surging through my body, intensified by the worry that at any moment this ten pound laptop would say its final goodbye before I got everything transferred to an external drive. As each folder opened, I felt as though I was looking through a window into my past, and in particular the raw early days of the pandemic, including the gut-wrenching visits to my dad in his assisted living facility. Those trips to see him were fraught with masks, barricades, sign-up and sign-in sheets, temperature checks, and timed visits. As I read the words, all the emotion and sadness of that time came flooding back with such poignancy, such bittersweetness. I gobbled up each word, tears streaming down my face. There were many more discoveries including a lengthy article I wrote on becoming a therapist. It is good. So good. Wow! Did I write that? I do have some good thoughts - maybe I can trust myself, I think, as I take in my own words.
These journal entries were just for me. I wrote them because the words swirled in me, and longed to be on the page. The ideas rattled and banged inside me and needed escape to be quieted and organized. As I read my sentiments, I am reminded of who I am. We can forget, and these journal entries can be a great awakener to self. Even if I have changed since writing these words, they were true for me then, and I remember why they were true. Even if I cringe when I encounter my past musings and struggles, aren’t those the experiences I had to go through to arrive at my present place? This time capsule allows me to get clear on my repeated strife and measure my growth. Journals enable us to see where we have been, where we still are, or where we must keep going. The themes of our lives are often inescapable, no matter our metamorphosis. As it turns out, our written words are always worthy of the page, the ink, and the time spent alone with our journals. Worthy simply because the words are of us, a tangible expression of self. Journaling is a gift for our present and future selves.
I will share one of the gems I found in my dinosaur of a laptop. I didn’t remember writing this journal entry in the form of a poem about my dad three years after his death, but the moment I saw the title, I was transported to the exact day that inspired me to write it. My body felt as though it was right back on that winter day that moved me to capture the pale moon, the chickadee, and the silence. In the moment I discovered this forgotten poem, my journal joyfully became the travel log of my life.
Winter
I miss you today.
I know there is nowhere for my missing to go,
but I miss you just the same.
I don’t know what I would say today.
The weather is wintery,
bundle up tight, let’s get your hat and puffy jacket.
But you and I, we’ve never complained about the cold
or reddened cheeks or chilly fingers.
We wouldn’t have a lot to say today.
Each other’s company would suffice,
while the chickadee and red robin accompany us,
the sun softening the edges of brisk air.
I would point to the winter moon, a pale crescent,
slight in the blue winter sky.
And then silence would settle between us.
The comfortable silence of two beings who can celebrate
without words,
the beauty of a crisp and bright winter day spent together.
