So should using the word "journal" as a verb.
I'm still working on cleaning out closets. Today I pulled a bunch of packaging boxes off the top shelf of the laundry closet. I don't need the original packaging for three telephones, a knife set, a blender, and a CD player I no longer have. Really. I can let these things go.
Then I got to the boxes at the bottom of the pile. The boxes placed on that shelf when I first moved into this house and never opened since. One box is still unopened. (I know what's in there. It can stay in there.) Two boxes are books and too heavy for me to get down on my own. I'll have Oz get them down tonight and I'll sort through them tomorrow. The last box contained one pair of wooden shoes, one pair of carved wooden mules from the Philippines, two Star Wars figures (Yoda and R2D2), a box of crayons, a pair of pink maracas from Mexico, a stamp album … You get the picture. I also found a folder of newspaper clippings, comic strips, and cards and letters from college. I think my mother sent me the newspaper clippings, they're kind of on the chirpy side. The folder also held a poem, in my handwriting, which was a spoof of a greeting card poem and would seem really clever to an eighteen-year-old. I shall say no more! But I did scan it and email it to my friends who would have been complicit in its creation.
Then I pulled some boxes out from under my bed and found my old journals. No one should be allowed to journal between the ages of 11 and 19. I'm just saying.
No, I'm not "saying." I'm blogging it. Online. In public. Ish. I am never ever reading my archives.
So, yeah, there was some cringing, some throwing out of notes, some throwing out of "Why did I save this?" items. More cringing. Lots of cringing. I think I put my back out.
The journals have not been burned.
Yet.
Young readers, take comfort in this: It may be the end of the world now, but when you're 40 and you find journals in which you are angsting all over the place about some "he" (or "she"), you will wonder (1) Why was I getting so worked up? And (2) Who the hell is "he" (or "she")?
407 words | July 2, 2007 04:17 PM | Real true storyThat's why you save journals, right? So you can show "young readers" and say, "Look at what I wrote 15 years ago. Silly, eh?" Of course evidence of this cringe-inducing journaling will make no difference in the life of the angst-ridden youth. They'll have to read their own journals 10 years down the road to realize how ridiculous they really were.
Posted by: Melanie at July 2, 2007 06:13 PM"Show"? What is this "show" of which you speak? No readers, young or otherwise, are going to be shown my journals. It's better for everyone that way.
I don't know why I save the journals. I can't bear to read more than a line or two. I cringe when I see the covers. Though I do appreciate the feeling of "Thank God, I'm over all that!" I get when I see them.
Posted by: 100 word minimum at July 2, 2007 07:01 PMOooh, yes, get rid of those journals ASAP. I finally realized there was zero value in keeping the one I wrote while studying abroad..... Ouch. Everytime i'd come across it, I'd keep it a little longer because I liked the cover. But then I finally thought--what if something happened to me and my husband or worse, sisters, came across this notebook and took the time to read it. It was ripped up that night and put in the trash, along with photos (also ripped up) from my first trip to mexico with a former b.f. GOOD RIDDANCE. - Janice
Posted by: janice at July 9, 2007 08:55 AM