Journaling

On a recent Sunday evening, my ten year old niece was looking through the pictures on my phone.

I was sitting next to her on the couch, supervising. I know there isn’t anything racey on my camera, but who knows what can happen when a ten year old has my phone.

So Gretta was sitting there scrolling through the photos and commenting on them (Things like, ‘You have too many pictures!’, or ‘Oh, you have a picture of Oreo the guinea pig!’ or ‘That doesn’t look like Adam!’).

When she got to a picture of a size comparison I took of the bigger regular journals and the smaller travel-size journals I make, she stopped and was like, ‘Those are SO cute!! I want one! My birthday is coming up; maybe you can give me one for my birthday!’ She was totally smitten by the smaller journal.

I was a little skeptical. Do ten-year-olds really like blank books? I asked her, ‘What would you do with a journal?’ Definitely a question mark in my voice.

‘I’d make notes and write in it’, she said, matter-of-factly.

Ah…ok…still wondering if kids really like things like that.

The day after that my sister-in-law, Abby, texted me to invite us over for a birthday dinner for Gretta the following Sunday. Gifts not expected. But, of course, I told her that Gretta had seen a picture of the travel journal and asked for it, so I told Abby I’d give her one...if she’d actually use it. Abby said that she did write and draw in journals a lot, so that sealed the deal. But Abby was slightly embarrassed that Gretta had unashamedly asked for it and hoped that her ‘feisty boldness’ would be used for good one day. I assured her it would.

The birthday dinner day came and Gretta knew all the gifts she would get.

‘Oh, really?’, I asked.

‘Yep’, said Gretta. ‘A polaroid camera, a small journal and a gift card’.

Turns out she was right. All that she mentioned she got and was happy with everything.

But my skepticism about ten (Now eleven) year olds using a blank journal…that gave me food for thought.

Processing through my skepticism I had to think outside of myself and I had to think back.

I say ‘outside of myself’ because some people write and journal a lot and others just don’t. If I automatically assume everyone loves to write like I do, then I’m quite wrong about that assumption.

But then, sometimes I am almost surprised (Or skeptical, as the case may be) when I find someone who does actually like to write and journal. Sometimes I think I’m the only old-fashioned weirdo on the planet who actually likes taking pen to paper to write what I’m thinking. And that’s not true either.

There’s both/and. I have to not be so me focused when I think I’m the only one and I have to realize that not everyone is into the same things I am.

I had to think back too. Back to when I received my first journal.

Christmas, late 80’s. I was probably eight years old. It was a surprise, unasked for Christmas gift from a family who we had dinner with on a regular basis. I didn’t know I was going to receive a small, green one-year journal, complete with lock and key. I didn’t know…and yet…that was the start of my love affair with all things journals.

I remember, after receiving it, going in to the bathroom (A private, safe place as we all know….provided it is a single stall, which this was) and just being so excited about this unexpected gift that I could barely contain myself. Literally grinning from ear to ear in the privacy of the bathroom. Of course, I was much more stoic when I emerged.

No one could’ve known what that gift started in my life. I didn’t even know. I just knew I was beyond excited to receive this beautiful journal.

I think I wrote faithfully for a few days and then nothing for a bit, then a few more days of continual writing, then nothing and on like that through the year. And at the end of the year only half the pages were filled, so I decided to make it a two-year journal and continued writing. The date was prefilled, and I didn’t write the year on the pages so looking back I’ve no idea what year I wrote what, but at least the date is correct. 🙂

A couple years later I received an American Girl one year journal which I wrote in much more steadily, then hit 1992…I got a Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper and a pack of notebook paper and I was off on a writing spree that I’m still on.

Since then, I graduated to three-subject notebooks and five-subject notebooks with pockets, always collage ruled (And the groan of when I noticed when I accidentally bought wide ruled once. Never again. I flew through that notebook). I’ve had journals with fun covers, journals I’ve put random paper stuff in (Like things I found in books when I worked at the library), journals people have given me, journals I’ve made. Now I use my practice journals that I make…the ones that aren’t quite good enough for my online shop. They’re fun and I like them. I’m always a sucker for any type of journal though and have to resist temptation to buy a new one (Sometimes I don’t resist).

I’ve been through different seasons of life where I wrote daily, the stupid things that happened when I was a home schooled teenager and had nothing better to do but write about the boring mundane; all those details that I thought mattered and would surely make me famous one day (You know, like Anne Frank).

I’ve been through seasons when I haven’t written quite as much. Life gets busy and it’s hard to find time. I’ve used journaling to process my emotions, record life events, write things for posterity, for self-expression, to remember what the Lord has said to me during different times of my life.

I don’t expect my little gift will produce the same results in Gretta. She’s a different person than I am. But hopefully she will write some meaningful things in her new journal and look back on it with fondness through the years.