With the exception of a brief foray into diary-writing in 9th grade, I never kept a journal until college. I started one the second semester of my freshman year at Michigan, and I’ve been journaling ever since…..though not so faithfully, I’m afraid.
This afternoon I was feeling restless. I’d just finished a really good novel (Wild Rose, by Ruth Axtell Morren) and was itching to write—not necessarily to write my own novel, but just to get some of my recent thoughts and experiences on paper, and not in this blog, because some of it is too personal, and also because I just love the feeling of writing things out by hand.
I knew it was time for a new journal. The last time I’d written in mine, I’d noticed there was only one page left in it to fill. So I’d already been thinking about which blank book I’d like to use next. (I have a decent collection of blank books, thanks to so many friends and family who know of my penchant for journaling!)
So I got out my journal and flipped to the back, there. Quickly skimmed the last couple of entries…..on November 19th, I’d recorded a dream I’d had that I had another baby—another boy, blonde like Charlie. I don’t remember that dream. But how odd this is, because I just told Brian this morning that last night I’d had a dream that I had another baby—another boy, blonde like Charlie! I noted this coincidence on the last page of the journal, then flipped to the front to jot down the finishing date of the book.
I was rather surprised to note that this little, wimpy blank book covered close to five years of my life. That’s all I’d written in five years???
But no, then I remembered that a great share of my journaling had taken place in my Our Country Diary, which I’d been keeping for several years. Our Country Diary is a wonderful book. There’s a new one each year, and each week gets two pages. There’s space to write appointments; and, for each day of the week, about a 1-inch by 7-inch rectangle of blank space in which to write the day’s happenings/thoughts/whatever. Not a lot of space, actually, for someone who, when she does sit down to journal, tends to write a lot. As I glanced over my entries in these books for the past two years, there were pages and pages of tiny, scrunched-up handwriting. There were also pages and pages with nothing whatsoever.
I used to be on some kind of Our Country Diary auto-delivery program. The diary for the next year would show up in my mail every November, without my having to order it. Even when I’d move (which I did three times in four years), somehow they’d find me, and I was never without my diary. Except this year. I didn’t get one.
I think I’m glad of it, actually. That kind of journaling didn’t allow the freedom I need. I do sometimes like to write about daily events, but mostly I write about bigger things. And, I’m sure you’re not surprised to know, I do tend to go on and on! 
So today I dug up some empty blank books and chose a hefty one. It’s got lined, 8 1/2- x 11-inch, bound pages, with a plain, cloth cover in periwinkle. I’ve felt so guilty about not journaling the way I used to (in the days before Our Country Diary). When I don’t write things down, they somehow seem lost forever. My goal for 2008 is to really load this thing up, so that nothing that matters will be forgotten.
I’m looking forward to it.
