I was introduced to the art of journaling by my third grade teacher. Miss C gave us time each morning to write in our "journals." The medium we used was a spiral bound notebook with wide lines. We could write about whatever we wanted, if we didn't feel like writing, we could draw pictures. The only ground rule that I can recall was that we had to make an attempt to fill the pages of the notebook. We could write as much or as little as we wanted for any given entry. We weren't graded on our efforts. Our reward was having Miss C read our journals and respond to our entries with thoughtful and caring words of encouragement.
For eight year old me, the third grade journaling exercise came at just the right time. Even then I needed a place to sort through my thoughts. I was dealing with some significant issues (for an 8 year old) at the time. My parents were having marital issues that I didn't understand or know how to deal with. In addition, my mother had just given birth to my youngest sister (because everyone knows that having a baby will fix whatever is wrong in your marriage), and I was feeling ignored. And, to make matters worse, (for an 8 year old), my best friend moved to Ohio in the middle of the school year which left me without a "best friend forever."
I have kept a journal of some sort on and off ever since the third grade. I write usually when I have so many thoughts in my head that I can't keep them all straight. I write so that I can put my thoughts down on paper so I can review them and reflect on them. My journals are also a guage for where I have been and where I think I'm going. I use the experience as a way to help me transition through difficult times. Most of the time my entries end up being a bit scattered and sometimes even a bit incoherent, I find that no matter what I start off intending to write about, some thought will cause me to veer off in a whole new direction. But for me, it is all part of the process of dealing with whatever it is that needs to be dealt with.
I still have most of my old journals, even the ones from 3rd grade. However, I erased most of my 4th grade journal. You see, the year was 1981, and I wrote many of the entries in my "Judy Blume Daily Diary" in pencil (don't ask me why, I have no idea.) When the new year started, I erased the old entries and started new ones.
My favorite journal is the one I started keepin on the day my husband and I got engaged. I wrote in that journal just about every night, and I gave it to him to read the night before our wedding. It was full of all my hopes and dreams for our future. It documents silly conversations we had and even sillier fights we had about wedding details that he couldn't be bothered with. To this day, my husband thinks it is the greatest gift I have ever given him.
This latest incarnation of my journal is obviously my way of dealing with my latest transition. Kind of like with my 3rd grade journal, I'm hoping to get some honest, yet thoughtful and encouraging words from all of the "Miss C's" out there.
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